I and Love and You
by rahleeyah
Summary: After Albany, Ruth decides it's time to leave London - and Harry - behind for good. A bit dark, a bit sad, and a bit smutty.
1. Chapter 1

**Special thanks to r4ven3 for giving this first chapter a read-through, and for your continued friendship and support. This is the first of what will likely be eight chapters, updated as time and _Something Wonderful_ will allow. I know that many other fics have explored Harry and Ruth post-Albany, and I hope you all will forgive me the self-indulgence of revisiting that time once more.**

* * *

 _One foot in and one foot back  
_ _But it don't pay to live like that  
_ _So I cut the ties and I jumped the tracks  
_ _For never to return_

 _-"I and Love and You"/The Avett Brothers_

* * *

Ruth Evershed didn't go to pieces, any more. When tragedy struck, she didn't scream, or rend her hair, or drown herself in wine. She didn't sit, catatonic, staring into space. Ruth Evershed had gone to pieces one too many times, and she'd never really been put back together. So after Albany, after Lucas, after Harry, she didn't collapse on the floor, weighed down by all her grief and rage and fear and guilt. There wasn't enough of her heart left to break, any more.

After Albany, she went home, and she slept. She slept for sixteen hours straight, the sedative slowly working its way out of her body, her cells gradually learning how to live again. She woke up, went to the loo, and then crawled back under the duvet. Her mobile lay forgotten by the bed, its battery dead. No one was likely to call her today, anyway, she supposed.

Beth poked her head around the bedroom door for a moment, around supper time; though they weren't quite friends, living together for the last year had brought them close in a way, and Ruth knew her flatmate was worried about her. Perhaps Tariq had told Beth how she had cried, when she thought Harry was dead. Perhaps Dimitri had taken Beth aside, and told her what he knew of the long, twisted, tragic history between the boss spook and his star analyst. Perhaps Beth had taken the initiative, and pulled their personnel files. Then again, it might just have been simple human compassion that compelled her to check in to make sure Ruth was still breathing. Funny, after all these years, Ruth couldn't quite remember what passed for normal any more.

As she lay beneath the duvet, she tried to decide if it was worth the effort to get out of bed or if she should just lie there until she rotted, until her skin and bones were dead and putrefied to match the blackness that had taken up residence where her heart used to be. A half-forgotten conversation from another lifetime drifted through her mind, and she smiled to remember that girl she had been, before.

Before she died.

There in the gathering dark she thought about that girl, and the ghost who had come back from her Grecian grave to haunt the halls of Thames House. She thought about the little charm necklace she had taken off the night she went on her first date with George, and wondered where it had gone. She'd always meant to tuck it in her go-bag, so it would always be with her, a little something to remember that poor, naïve, dead girl by, but the necklace was lost.

The necklace was lost, and George was lost, and Ruth was lost, but as she mused on what used to be, what could never be, she began to formulate a plan.

She'd always been good at plans. Little bullet-pointed lists, little boxes to check. _Do this thing, and then this, and then this, and you'll be done, and everything will make sense again._ Give her a pen and paper and she could right every wrong, with a well thought out plan.

It was her plan that galvanized her into action that got her out of bed and into the shower. For two years now she had dreamt of leaving, of starting over, of burying Ruth Evershed again, this time for good. She had dreamt of a big city, a city where the lights never went out and no one knew her name and no one cared where she went or who she loved. And now, finally, she knew it was time to go. There was just one thing she had to do first.

* * *

There was no awkward shuffling, no last-minute onset of crippling doubt, no self-conscious primping; Ruth walked right up to the door, and rang the bell, and stood still as a statue, waiting for him to appear. The girl she'd been before would have cringed to see her now, standing there bold as brass on his front step, but that girl had known nothing of the true meaning of fear. That girl had been frightened of whispers; the woman who had taken her place knew there were greater terrors in this world. Now she knew how it felt to have the beating heart ripped from her chest, how it felt to look a man in the face and shoot him down while he choked on his own blood, and now she did not fear something as meaningless as whispered words.

And oh, there would be whispers, after this. There was an obbo van parked not thirty meters from the spot where she stood, and she knew their eyes and ears were trained on her. Long ago she'd known a young man with an easy smile and a tempting charm who would have loved to have been given such infallible confirmation of his suspicions; he would have called everyone he knew, and closed his book. But he was gone, and his book with him; lost in the most horrific, unthinkable fashion. _Poor Zaf._ She thought. _Poor Jo. Poor Adam. Poor Fiona. Poor Colin. Poor Ros. Poor Danny. Oh, Danny…._

The door opened then, just as her thoughts drifted to Danny and the clammy feel of his cold, dead face in her hands.

Harry didn't seem surprised to see her. His hair, what little of it remained, was rumpled and untidy. His shirt was untucked, his tie nowhere to be found, his feet bare on the hardwood floor. Eight years ago, her heart would have skipped a beat, to see his muscular forearms bare where he'd rolled up his sleeves, to see the deep V of skin exposed at his throat where he'd undone a few buttons. Eight years ago she would have melted, and stammered, and blushed. Now, she simply thought _he looks as broken as I feel._

Neither of them said a word. Harry's eyes flicked to the obbo van, and then back to her face, and she read the question in his gaze. _Are you sure you want to do this?_ Oh, how well she knew this man, this terrible, honorable, gorgeous, hopeless man. If only that poor dead girl could see them now, she thought. The girl she had been had longed to know him, to read his face like her favorite book, to look into his eyes and see his soul. Well, now she could. Now she could, and she hated what she saw.

Ruth gave no answer to his question, save to take a step towards him. He stepped back, like a dancer, leading her into his home for the first time since she'd come back from Cyprus.

Inside, the lights were dim, and music was coming softly from somewhere. _Coltrane_ , she realized with a tired little smile. Harry had been sitting in the dark, drinking and listening to jazz music; how very apropos.

As she followed him to the kitchen she wondered what he'd been thinking about, there in the chill darkness of this house that was much too big for one person. Had he been asking himself if it was worth it, in the end, to throw away his career and millions of lives to save one woman, a woman who thanked him by saying only _it was unfair of you to love me?_ Had he been weighing his options, taking note of what dirt he had on whom, and whether the secrets he kept were dangerous enough to ensure his freedom? Had he been thinking of her?

No answer was forthcoming, at least, not from him. Harry pulled a half-empty bottle from his liquor cabinet, poured a healthy measure into a glass. He gave a little roll of his shoulders as he turned to face her; _do your shoulders ache, Harry?_ She wondered. _Do you wish there was someone here waiting for you when you came home at the end of the day, to rub your shoulders and cook your supper and listen to you whinge on about how terrible the world is?_

Such thoughts were unkind, she knew. Harry would never ask that of her, would never dream that she would be that sort of wife. The ill-timed, ill-fated, ill-treated proposal at Ros' graveside hadn't been about Harry needing a woman to look after him; it had been about Harry needing Ruth, needing to hold on to her, to cherish her, to love her in the darkness when their world became too much. And Ruth had thrown his love back in his face.

He handed her the glass and she took it, and still they did not speak. Their footsteps took them back to the sitting room, where the strains of _While my Lady Sleeps_ oozed, scratchy and earnest, from a battered record player in the corner. He folded himself into his favorite chair and lifted the glass that waited for him on the side table; she slipped into a corner of the sofa, just opposite him, shucking off her shoes and tucking her feet up underneath her like she belonged there.

 _You could have had this every night,_ she told herself as she watched him, watching her. _You could sit on this sofa and read your book and he could sit in his chair and listen to his music, and when you were both too exhausted to stand, you could stumble up the stairs and fall asleep together._

It was a pleasant fantasy, this could-have-been life.

 _Be brave. Be selfish for once._ The words echoed in her mind.

How strange that was, to receive the best advice of her entire life from the sort of man who could look her in the eye and tell her he would shoot her in the head without reservation. The sort of man who could shove a needle in her arm and try to soothe her as she slipped into oblivion.

Ruth had never really trusted Lucas North. From the moment they first met on the Grid on that horrible, horrible day when she'd returned to London, she had never felt comfortable around him. And as her suspicions grew, so did Harry's faith in the man. Harry kept giving Lucas more and more leniency, his trust the rope with which Lucas had hung himself.

As she looked at him now the temptation to say _I told you so_ was almost overwhelming, but she held her tongue. She hadn't come here to wound his pride, to discuss his faults ad nauseam. There was an old Jackson Browne song; how did it go?

 _Don't confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them._

If that were ever true of anyone, it was Harry.

"I looked for you, after," Harry said quietly, staring at her no longer but considering his drink instead. "I went to the roof. Thought I'd find you there."

If Ruth thought she knew him well, thought she knew his heart and his hopes, it was nothing compared to his understanding of her. Every fiber of her being had screamed at her to wait for him on the Grid, to stand on the roof, where he was sure to go, and meet him after. But she had left, the taste of her own words still bitter in her mouth.

"I couldn't bear to be there another moment longer," she told him.

Since the day her father died, Ruth had never really felt at home anywhere, until she came to Thames House. Her mother had moved house half a dozen times, and all the while Ruth was trapped at boarding school, coming back each summer to a different room, a different furniture arrangement, another desperate attempt at starting fresh. There had been countless little flats, after university, in Cheltenham, then London. After her frantic flight came more temporary reprieves, in Paris and Italy and Athens. There had been a neat little cottage in Cyprus, and then a house bought with George. A few small, ratty safe houses back in London, and then there was the flat she shared with Beth. None of those places had been anything more than a room to rest her head in. Thames House had been home, the sterile, artificial lights of the Grid more familiar, more welcoming than anywhere else she'd ever lived. There were memories in that place, etched into every well-known stone; she knew who she was there. She was happy there.

But that night, after Albany, after everything, the weight of the past had borne down on her. Everywhere she looked beloved faces swirled through the darkness at her, each of them seeming to whisper, _it was your turn, Ruth,_ until she couldn't take it any more, and fled from their recrimination.

"I think this is the end of the road, Ruth," Harry said, sighing heavily.

She couldn't help but wonder what he meant by that. The end of the road for his career? For his life? For them?

"Well, if it is, you picked a spectacular way to go, Harry," she answered, deciding to pretend he was talking about work, and not the heavy, awful, emptiness that was their non-relationship.

He was watching her again, those brown eyes she loved so well shining softly in the glow of the lamp between them. The needle was skipping on the record; it, too, had reached the end of the road.

"You should flip it over," she told him gently, wondering if their salvation lay on the other side of the record.

There was another long silence between them, as Harry heaved himself out of his chair and made his way over to the record player. As she watched him, Ruth took a sip from her drink, hating the burn and the way the taste of it reminded her of him. The record began to play again, the soft, smooth sound of the saxophone invading her senses, worming its way under her skin, mixing with the alcohol in her blood and turning her attention fully on the man across from her. The man now leaning up against a bookshelf and staring at her warily, as if she were a wild animal, poised to run.

And what a man he was.

For people who didn't know him, she supposed he wasn't that remarkable. The wrong side of fifty, heavy with the weight of muscle gone to seed, hair thinning, face lined. But hear his voice, learn of his past, and suddenly he was a god; those hands had killed and created, that mouth had love and lied, those eyes had wept and bled. He spoke, and the mountains trembled. He spoke, and, for a moment, Ruth Evershed could feel again.

"Why are you here?"

 _Oh, Harry._

With steady hands she placed her glass on the table by the sofa, and rose to stand in bare feet, the continual _thump thump thump_ of her heart in her chest keeping steady pace with the music pouring out of the record player.

"I wanted to see you."

She took a step towards him. He stayed still, watching.

"Why?"

 _Oh, Harry._

She didn't realize she'd spoken his name aloud until she saw him flinch. Why, indeed.

The words were on the tip of her tongue; _I'm leaving, Harry. I'm leaving you, I'm leaving the service, I'm leaving London, I'm leaving Ruth Evershed far behind, never to be seen or heard from again. I'm leaving, because in my heart I'm already gone._ But how could she say that? After everything he'd sacrificed, everything they'd done, she was giving up. In the moment, her words failed her. As she struggled to come up with some other explanation, her feet kept moving her forward, until she was close enough to touch him.

Her hands weren't steady, any more.

Her hands trembled as she reached out, and gently stroked his cheek, feeling the day's growth of stubble, prickly beneath her fingertips, staring into his eyes, wondering if she had it in her to deliver the final blow. She never got the chance.

Perhaps the memories had overwhelmed him, too. Perhaps, as he stood there with her hands on his face he couldn't help but recall the last time she'd touched him this way, and the need to feel her lips beneath his own again had drowned out every other thought. Perhaps he'd sensed what she was about to say, and couldn't bear to hear it.

Whatever his reason, Harry reached out and caught her hips in his hands, drawing her flush against him as his lips crashed down on hers and every admonition, every accusation, every confession disappeared from her mind until all that remained was Harry.

How many times, in the years since she'd left him on the docks, had she dreamed of his kiss? How many nights had the thought of his lips on hers sustained her, kept her going, kept her from breaking down completely?

 _God_ , but this man knew how to kiss. His lips were soft and warm and insistent, pressed against her own. His hands were warm and strong, gripping her hips, holding her as close to him as possible, tense with longing. Longing for her, she knew. As sweet as it was, to finally be held by him, to finally feel the warmth and wet of his mouth, she needed more. The girl she had been would have waited, meekly, for him to move things along, but that girl was dead. Ruth needed more, and she was damned if she was waiting another moment.

Eager hands slid into his hair, and her tongue snaked out from between her lips to brush against him, telling him in no uncertain terms what she wanted. Harry seemed more than happy to oblige. He opened his mouth to hers as one of his hands drifted away from her hips, running over the swell of her ass, giving it an appreciative little squeeze as his tongue forced its way past her own. She arched her back, desperate to feel the solid heat of him against her. They fell together, the bookshelf at his back holding them up as hands wandered and the fire between them grew.

"Ruth," he breathed against her mouth, his lips moving down her jaw toward her neck, blazing a trail across her skin. He found her pulse point, sucked the sensitive skin there between his teeth until she was moaning, wanton and boneless in his arms. If she had the wherewithal to think she might have been embarrassed by the way she was grinding herself against him, shamelessly pressing the softness of her breasts against his chest, cradling his head against her skin despite the fact that she knew he was leaving a mark. As it was she urged him on, consequences and obbo vans be damned. She needed this. _Self-control, self-denial;_ for too long that had been her mantra. If this was to be her last night as Ruth Evershed, she was determined to make it such a night that wherever she went, whoever she became, she would never forget it.

She caught his head in her hands, brought his face back up to hers so she could drink the whiskey from his lips once more.

"Take me to bed, Harry," she told him, and without another word he grabbed her by the hand, and led her up the stairs.

* * *

It wasn't fair, she knew, to do this to him. It wasn't right to deny him an explanation, to go from _it was unfair of you to love me_ to _take me to bed, Harry_ without any sort of rationale. She could only imagine what he was thinking now, but the feel of his hands on her skin distracted her from the injustice of her actions.

They stumbled through his doorway in a frenzy of kisses and a haze of lust. Ruth's rational mind had shut down; though she had come here fully intending to talk to him, she balked at the prospect of breaking his heart one final time. This felt much better, losing herself in him, forgetting for a moment all the hideous things they'd done. She let go, and for the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to feel.

Allowed herself to feel Harry's hands, broad and strong and tender, where they traced patterns on the skin of her back beneath her shirt. To feel Harry's tongue, unrelenting as he filled her mouth, searched her out, tasted her. To feel the hardness of his cock, straining for her through his trousers. To feel the staccato beat of his heart beneath her hand, resting on his chest.

Everything was moving too quickly, and somehow, not fast enough. Ruth felt herself spiraling, falling into a sea of madness; she was leaving, she was _leaving,_ but _Christ,_ she needed him first.

Harry was trying to slow things down between them; she'd always imagined he'd be a considerate lover, should she ever find the courage to drag him to bed, and he was thus far exceeding her expectations. Though his kisses were no less demanding, he didn't throw her back against the duvet and ravish her (though she wouldn't have minded if he had); there was a sweetness to his touch, to the way he kept right on kissing her, as if he could do it all night, and never ask for more. He didn't grind himself against her, didn't groan or clutch at her; he held her, cradled her almost, sheltered her in his arms. Even now, in this moment of complete abandon, he was protecting her, and she couldn't stand it.

With a surety of purpose that shocked even her, she took a step back, only to capture his eyes with her own as she reached down, and pulled her blouse up and over her head. She took in his gaze, dark with yearning for her, and willed him not to look away as she reached behind her, and slid down the zip of her skirt, the fabric sliding off her hips and down her legs to pool around her ankles.

The girl she'd been before would have been mortified, to find herself standing in Harry's bedroom in nothing but a bra and knickers, staring at him so boldly as he struggled to keep his breathing even, that same hungry, desperate expression on his face he'd worn that fateful night at Havensworth. There was so much history between them, so many monumental events, each carefully filed away, identified with a single word in her mind, each heavy with meaning. Danny. Angela. Havensworth. Cotterdam. Mani. Ros. Albany. Each name a snapshot of emotion, to be dragged out and poured over of a night, when sleep wouldn't come and the ghosts wouldn't be silenced. She didn't want to think about those things now. She'd been so close to forgetting, so close-

In two slow, measured steps Harry closed the gap between them, and drew her back into his embrace with his hands on her hips. He couldn't seem to keep his hands off her skin, and that was just fine with Ruth. _Make me forget_ , she begged him silently as she kissed him and started unfastening his shirt buttons. _Make me feel._

With his buttons now all undone, Ruth slid her hands up the smooth expanse of his chest from the waistband of his trousers to his shoulders, marveling at the hard reality of him beneath her fingertips. She eased the shirt off him, and he reluctantly withdrew his hands from their exploration of her ass to help her. There was a part of her that longed to study him, to learn the topography of his skin with lips and tongue and fingertips until she knew every bump, every crevice, every scar and every freckle, but she didn't dare give into that temptation. If she slowed down, even for a moment, she'd have to face what she was doing, what she had done, what _he_ had done, and she couldn't bear the thought. So she pressed herself against him, her hips insistent, nudging him back towards the bed, a desperate heat building up inside her with each passing second.

They shuffled backwards together, her hands fumbling with his belt and his hands flicking open the clasp of her bra with much more finesse. Harry turned them effortlessly, his right hand pressed against the small of her back, supporting her as he gently eased her down and onto the bed. She went willingly, releasing his now unbuckled belt and shuffling back until her head rested against the pillows. She watched him, one lip caught between her teeth, as he pulled off his trousers and revealed the simple black trunks he wore beneath, and the generous swell of his cock, tenting the fabric where it rose up to meet her. He was marvelous, really; warm and present and so very _Harry;_ there was something comforting in the thought of finally seeking shelter in the body of a man whose mind she knew so well.

Harry kissed his way up her body, starting with her ankles; his lips brushed, light and teasing, up the length of her calf to her knee, then her thigh, then the sharp protrusion of her hip bone, clearly evident when she was flat on her back like this, across her stomach. He paused for a moment when he reached her breasts, sucking one tender nipple between his teeth. The heat of his mouth on her in such an intimate place sent her reeling; she curled her fingers in his short, sparse hair and held him against her chest, whimpering as he overwhelmed her. She bent her knees, cradling his body between her thighs, wondering if he could feel how wet she was already through the thin cotton of her pants.

It should have been odd, how they'd fallen into this without speaking; from the moment his lips first touched hers downstairs in the sitting room the only word he had spoken was her name, falling from his lips in a ragged sigh. Truth was, their relationship had always revolved around the things they didn't say, and now that they were finally in bed together, it seemed that wasn't about to change. He didn't tell her she was beautiful; his tongue tracing patterns around her breast did that for him. She didn't tell him how badly she desired him; her hips bucking up towards him did that for her.

Still the pressure swirling inside her mounted, trapped there beneath the weight of him. Didn't he know, couldn't he see that she was breaking in half for need of him? Her heart hammered in her chest, pounding out a rhythm not just of lust but of fear, too, fear of his expectations, fear of what must surely come when this moment of selfish longing passed and reality returned. She couldn't face him, couldn't face his dreams for them, couldn't face her dreams of a life without him, and so she pushed them on, desperate for release and desperate to run.

Holding him there between her legs, it was easy enough for her to shift their positions, to flip him over onto his back and take control. Before she died, Ruth had never really liked it on top; she'd been a quiet, flat-on-her-back sort of lover. George had taught her confidence, and his death had taught her the cost of hesitation.

Ruth rose up above him on her knees, shifting her weight from one leg to the other as she slipped off her knickers so she was completely, gloriously naked above him. She bent her head to drop suckling kisses across his collarbone as she ground down shamelessly against him, feeling his hardness brushing against her clit and moaning at the sensation. His hands smoothed up and down her back, goosebumps rising in their wake.

It was too much; her need of him, her fear of him, her anger with him, her doubt of herself, it all roiled around and around inside her, making it hard to breathe, hard to think. When this all started, she had been so relieved to feel _anything_ , but now she felt so much she was like to burst from the strain of keeping it all inside.

With insistent hands she tugged on his trunks until he gave a little chuckle and kissed her forehead, lifting up his hips beneath her to wiggle free from his last remaining garment. That chuckle was almost enough to send her running from the room; what was he _thinking?_ Ordinarily she knew the answer to that question, but in this moment, she was so lost inside herself she couldn't begin to fathom the truth of him. Was he happy, to have her here with him? Was he relieved, thinking she had forgiven him? Was he just keen to bury his cock inside the nearest warm, wet place? She didn't know, she didn't want to know; she wanted to come, and then she wanted to go.

Ruth didn't waste any time; she reached beneath her, wrapping her hand around him, taking a moment to marvel at the sheer size of him before she situated herself above him. For one brief moment she brushed the tip of his cock against her folds, back and forth, reveling in the surge of power she felt at the way his eyes closed and his lips parted, his breaths harsh and needy. Needy for _her._ Only a moment, though; she had a plan, and she would not be deterred. Balancing on her knees with one hand on his chest for support and the other still wrapped around him, she lowered herself, faster than she probably should have, relishing in the hint of pain as he stretched her. It had been two years since she'd last had sex, two years spent in morning and penitence for a man who deserved better than the broken bits of herself she'd offered him. Maybe she had earned this bit of pain with her pleasure, this reminder that nothing came without a price.

She began to move, frantic almost, rising and falling above him, moaning louder than she ever had before. For his part Harry clutched her hips, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise as he tried to abate her pace, but Ruth moved on, heedless. Already she was close, so _close_ to tipping over the edge, and she was certain that as soon as she did, he would follow suit, and then she could retreat back into her own private darkness.

"Ruth," Harry groaned beneath her; vaguely she was aware that it wasn't a happy sound, but still she did not stop. Could not stop. She impaled herself on him, again and again, faster and faster, tumbling closer and closer until-

Until with a strength she had not known he possessed Harry lifted her bodily off him, and pushed her back facedown against the mattress, pinning her there with his weight.

She cried out then, in surprise and grief at the loss of him, in frustration at having been pulled back when she was so near the brink of oblivion. Her whole body was shaking, but Harry was having none of it. He kissed her shoulder, running gentle hands along the length of her sides, his cock nestled against her ass, just out of reach of her searching hips.

"Slow down," he murmured, his lips brushing the curve of her ear. "It's all right. You're all right." He spoke to her softly, as if she were a startled horse he needed to calm.

"Harry," she choked out, mortified to realize she was actually crying. Her tears soaked the pillow beneath her head, and every nerve in her body trembled and shrieked for release.

He seemed to recognize her distress, though whether he truly understood the cause of it she would never know. He touched her with a reverence that shocked her, his fingertips gliding down her sweat-slicked back and down between her legs, where she ached to feel him most.

"No need to rush," he breathed, pressing another kiss against her shoulder as he slid two fingers inside her and she moaned, feeling him thrusting firmly against that spot that always sent her reeling. It should have surprised her, how quickly he'd learned the shape of her, but this man had been a part of her for so long that in a way she felt he'd always been there, beneath her skin. It didn't take much for him to push her over the edge; just those two fingers, curling hard and fast inside her, just his lips, pressing soft kisses against the nape of her neck, just his thumb, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing against her clit until she clenched around him and bit the pillow to keep from screaming as she came. All thought left her as she arched beneath him, no longer wondering what he was thinking or what he was doing or why.

But then he was pulling her back, his fingers moving inside her again, not giving her a moment to rest or come down from her high as he built her up again, fueling the fires of her desire until she was thrusting back against his hand and whimpering. The sounds he was ripping out of her with just his hands would have embarrassed her, if she had enough sense left to realize what was happening, but as it was she had given herself completely over to him, and the endless press of his fingers inside her. With an ease borne of practice he built her up again, pushing her to ride the waves of her first orgasm until she tumbled over into the second, his body warm and solid and steady on top of hers.

She drifted, boneless and finally, finally, relieved, her face buried in a pillow that smelled like him. As she came back to herself she gradually became aware of him, whispering nonsense words into her hair, his knees planted either side of her hips, his chest pressed flat against the plane of her back. With an almost superhuman effort she turned her head to look at him, wanting to say something, anything, to explain her desperation and her fear and her grief, but he never gave her the chance. Perhaps he did know why she'd come after all, and perhaps he was as determined to prevent her departure as she was determined to go.

His lips found hers again, soft and sweet as they brushed together. This kiss was almost chaste, and she very nearly laughed aloud at the absurdity of it, that he should kiss her so gently while his fingers were firmly clenched within her still-spasming sex. He withdrew his hand, and she groaned, and he laughed, his fingers wet with her come and tracing patterns on the bare skin of her ass. She raised her hips subconsciously to follow him, some baser part of her still eager for him. He kissed her one last time, his tongue teasing hers for just a moment, before he shifted his weight back, away from her.

This was a dance she knew well, and she moved to meet him, rallying what little strength she had left after shattering twice beneath his hands. It was strange, to know that he was there, sat back on his heels and staring unobstructed at the most intimate part of her, raised up and waiting for him. Strange to think they'd found themselves in this position, after all their years of steadfast retreat from any sort of physical affection. Strange to think this want (she could not call it love, could not give voice to that _something wonderful that was never said_ , could not believe that it was still wonderful, after all this time) had survived through all their grief and rage and loss.

He snaked one hand beneath her, searching through the narrow space between her skin and the mattress until he was cupping her breast, the warmth of his hand a reassurance, an anchor she could cling to. He kneaded her flesh lightly, careful the way he always was with her, and then she felt him, the head of his cock brushing between her folds once, twice, three times.

"Harry, please," she whimpered, intending her words as encouragement, but hearing them more like a prayer. He loomed over her, and slid inside her just a little, moving slow and steady, easing himself into her. Where before she had been taking from him, now he was giving of himself, and it nearly broke her heart to feel his tender regard for her. In and out, in and out, he moved, setting his own rhythm, his free hand holding her hips steady so he could set the pace, stretching her that bit more with each thrust until he was finally, finally, fully sheathed deep inside her. In this position, him behind her, her hips raised up to meet him, she felt as if he could reach straight through her, felt as though the hand wrapped around her breast was clutching her heart instead.

And then he began to move in earnest, and she drowned in a sea of him.

If she had thought she'd felt reckless abandon at the touch of his fingers, it was nothing compared to this, the heart-wrenching glory of him moving inside her. Harder and faster he moved, his thrusts pushing her back against the mattress, the hand holding her hip sliding around to search through her damp curls until he found her clit again, and between his hand and his cock he broke down the last remaining vestiges of her resolve. No man before had ever made her feel this way, had ever set her on fire like this, had ever broken her apart only to heal her hurts. She curled her fingers in the sheets and let him lead her, their bodies slick and overheated from exertion, slapping together as he groaned, and she moaned, and they raced toward their final release.

She came first; she was right, about his being a considerate lover. He waited her out, slowing his own movements until she stopped shaking before resuming his pace, his breath hot by her ear until finally he spilled himself inside her and they were both completely, mercifully still. He had purged her of her horror, of her grief, of her doubt, and left her full of himself instead, and she was grateful to him for it.

With one last little nudge against her he pulled away, and flopped beside her on his back, his chest heaving from his exertions. Ruth remained where she was, lying on her stomach with her arms folded beneath her head, and said nothing. She watched his face, his eyes closed, the corners of his full lips turned up with the ghost of a self-satisfied smile. She reached out, and traced the outline of those lips with shaking fingers.

Harry caught her hand in his, and pressed a kiss against her palm before laying her hand flat against his chest, so she could feel the steady _thump thump thump_ of his heart. She wanted to speak, but he had stolen the words from her, and what fleeting thoughts she had were of him, only of him, of the way he felt, the way he made her feel.

* * *

The uncomfortable wetness of their joining pooling between her thighs brought her back to herself, though she could not say how much time had passed. Beside her Harry had fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep, the lines of his face smoothed for once as he rested. Idly she wondered if he'd slept at all since Albany.

 _Albany._

It all came crashing in on her then, and she rolled away from him, curling herself into a tight little ball as she tried to will the tears away. She hadn't come here for this, to find herself in his bed, to lose herself in his love.

He always did this to her. She would begin to move away, to find some piece of life for herself, and he would pull her back. Was she destined to spend the rest of her like this, trapped in this dance of progress and retreat?

 _No,_ she told herself, _no. We've reached the end of the road._

Carefully she eased herself out of the bed, picking up her ruined knickers and the pile of clothes she'd left on the floor before walking out of the room on silent feet. She eased the door closed behind her, and dressed in the hallway, so the rustling sound of her clothes wouldn't disturb his slumber. He needed to sleep, and she needed to let him.

Ruth left his house without a word, without an explanation, without a glance back over her shoulder. He hadn't set the alarm when he let her in what seemed like a lifetime ago, and she didn't know the code to set it now, but her eyes fell on the obbo van across the street as she closed the door behind her. He was under round the clock surveillance; surely he'd be safe enough for one night.

She walked back to her car, her steps heavy but certain. She was leaving. He would find out about it soon enough, and if he was angry that she'd left without saying goodbye, her only defense would be this; _I said goodbye to you a hundred times that night, but you weren't listening._


	2. Chapter 2

**Many thanks to everyone who read and reviewed the first chapter. You guys are amazing!**

* * *

 _Oh, Brooklyn, Brooklyn take me in  
_ _Are you aware the shape I'm in  
_ _My hands they shake, my head it spins  
_ _Oh, Brooklyn, Brooklyn take me in_

 _-I and Love and You/The Avett Brothers_

* * *

 _Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York  
Three days later_

Beth had called the row houses _brownstones_ , when she handed Ruth the key. The name was apt, Ruth supposed, simple and to the point, but it didn't really paint the full picture. Yes, the homes were brown and made of stone, but it still didn't quite evoke the image she saw before her now. She stood on the pavement beside a narrow road, both sides of which were lined with an imposing row of multistory townhouses, each built right up next to the other, each fronted with a wrought-iron gate and a short, steep flight of stairs. The stone was worn and weathered, and, to Ruth's mind, in need of a thorough scrubbing. There were trees along the pavement, and flowers grew behind some of the gates, the splash of color seeming incongruous when combined with the haphazard smattering of bins and the cars parked tightly on either side of the road. There were little markets – _bodegas_ , Beth's voice echoed in her head – and little bars and little shops squeezed in between some of the houses, popping up almost at random. She could hear people shouting and dogs barking and car horns blaring, and music pouring out of a window somewhere above her. It was beautiful, and strange, and terrifying, and everything Ruth had ever dreamed.

She took a deep breath, and opened the gate in front of Number Six.

Most of the brownstones on this street had been converted into apartments, but somehow Beth had managed to steal one for herself. The night Ruth decided to leave London, the night she left Harry's bed and came home to find a newly-decommissioned Beth roaring drunk in their cramped little flat, Beth had explained her "retirement policy." She bought the townhouse on a whim, when she had more money than she knew what to do with, and kept it as a bolt-hole, a place to run if everything got to be too much. The house was worth millions, perfectly situated within walking distance of Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Public Library, and should Beth (and her alias, Lisa Parker) ever grow tired of paying the exorbitant taxes and upkeep, she could sell it, and live comfortably off the proceeds for years. The fact that Beth apparently had enough money from her days as a private contractor to pay taxes on a million-dollar house in America and yet had not felt the need to find a flat in London was not lost on Ruth, and had probably played a role in Beth's decision to give her the keys. Perhaps Beth felt guilty for playing the down-on-her-luck flatmate for a year, when she had the means to find her own place.

Ruth wasn't complaining, though. She had a new name, a new home, and an interview for a new job scheduled for Monday morning.

The inside of the brownstone was eerily still, after the chaos of the street. The blinds were closed and the shades were drawn, and a thick layer of dust coated everything in sight. There was no furniture, no art on the walls, just an echoing, empty silence. She would need to explore, and clean, and buy a few things (ok, a lot of things), but the bones of the house were sturdy, and as she looked around, she could almost feel a flicker of hope.

Almost.

Hope was a foreign thing to her, these days, but it hadn't always been. She'd felt hope, the first time she ever walked through the doors of Thames House, leaving behind Cheltenham and the dull life of a GCHQ analyst. She'd felt hope when Harry asked her to dinner, and her thoughts had turned to everything they could be together. She'd felt hope when she first moved to Cyprus, and finally, finally stopped running. Despite the horror of the circumstances, she'd felt hope when Mani led her into the warehouse and she saw Harry's face again, felt certain he could save them. She'd even felt hope when she'd re-entered the Grid the day the Bendorf group were held hostage, but that hope had died with Jo. That hope had died, and it had never really rekindled. A heart could only be broken so many times, she supposed, before it hardened.

Her heart had been soft, once. Her heart had been kind, and gentle, and full of wonder. Even now, thousands of miles and an ocean away, that dead girl haunted her, taunted her, reminded her of everything that could have been, everything that never would be. Back then, when her heart was sweet and tender, Harry's fingers had brushed across her palm on a bus, and that had been enough to set her fragile heart ablaze. Now, Harry's fingers had been inside her, had brought her to trembling, breath-stealing ecstasy not once but twice, and that had not been enough to keep her by his side.

 _Who am I?_ she wondered dully, leaning back against the door as jet-lag and guilt overtook her. _What have I become?_

No one sings songs for spies, she knew. In the world of covert intelligence, you either died screaming or lived long enough to fade into irrelevance. The people you saved would never know your name, and should they ever learn of the things you'd done in the name of protecting them, they'd spit in your face. She wondered briefly how many people had cursed them, the day they'd unleashed the EM pulse bomb. Of course, the citizens of London didn't know who was responsible for the sudden failure of every bit of technology within a mile radius of Whitehall, but surely they had cursed. Surely the families of the nine people who died in the pulse had cursed. Surely those people would be furious, if they ever learned that their loved ones had been lost because some tired government man in a Saville Row suit had flipped a switch at the urging of his almost-lover.

 _Is it all just maths, Ruth?_

 _Sometimes I think it is._

Oh, how those words had come back to haunt her.

 _I'm still in credit._

She shook her head, ran her tired, trembling hands over her face, rubbed her dry eyes furiously as if she could banish the ghost of Lucas North just by willing him away. In the few nights since he'd taken her from the back of the obbo van, what little sleep she'd managed to grab had been disturbed by dreams of his hands, covering her mouth to stifle her cries, running over her hair almost gently as she faded away. _God damn him_ , she thought.

 _And God damn Harry, too._

Harry, who had done for her what he hadn't been able to do for George, or Nico. Even after two years that wound was still raw and fresh, and she blanched away from it in the darkness of the brownstone. After all this time she could still feel the warmth of the Cypriot sunshine, could still see the terror in Nico's cherubic face as their little blue car careened wildly down the lane. Could still hear the recrimination in George's voice as he said _the truth is an end in itself._

 _How much you have to learn._

What must George have thought, sitting there in that _poky little flat,_ staring at a woman he thought he loved, watching her roll her eyes and morph into another person entirely, shaking off the cloak of the mild-mannered medical clerk and slipping back into the skin of the battle-hardened spook. George had loved her for her softness, and Harry had loved her for her strength, and in the end she had doomed them both.

For Harry was doomed, surely. He had traded his integrity, his freedom, his job, his very soul, to save her life, and the buzzards were circling. _I never asked for this_ , she wanted to shout, but she found she could not make a sound. It was all just maths, in the end, and this equation didn't add up. One woman was not worth the lives of the thousands, maybe millions, who would die when Albany was put to use. The landscape of the entire world would shift, when that moment came. She wondered if it would be soon, wondered how she would feel when one morning she would wake and read the news to find that somewhere in China, or Africa, or maybe even here in America, a strange new plague was festering. She wondered what the people around her would think, when they learned that _she_ was the cause. Surely they would look at her, and ask themselves the very same question she could not escape; _why her?_

 _Stop this,_ she told herself firmly. _Stop_.

She wasn't running, any more, wasn't looking over her shoulder for men in dark sunglasses and cheap suits, come to take her away. And the day Albany finally caught up to her, no one would know that she was the reason people were dying in the streets. She would be safe, here in this empty, quiet house. This was a new start, far away from the horror of her old life. Ruth Evershed was dead, for good and all this time.

* * *

 **Forgive the brevity of this chapter; I wanted to get Ruth settled in before we check on Harry. Next chapter will be up in just a few days.**


	3. Chapter 3

**As you have no doubt realized by now, this story was inspired by the song "I and Love and You" by The Avett Brothers. The song is worth a listen, if you're so inclined.**

* * *

 _When at first I learned to speak  
_ _I used all my words to fight  
_ _With him and her and you and me  
_ _Ah, but it's just a waste of time  
_ _Yeah, it's such a waste of time_

 _-I and Love and You/The Avett Brothers_

* * *

 _Whitehall, London  
_ _Two months later_

"You're a lucky man, Sir Harry," Towers told him amenably as they rode in the relative comforts of his chauffeur-driven car, leaving the ugliness of the inquiry far behind, heading for Thames House.

Harry wasn't quite sure what luck had to do with anything. He'd always imagined that it was hard work, not blind luck, that had brought him this far, always attributed his success to quick thinking and clever planning. Good luck was a fickle thing, in his experience. Bill Crombie had been lucky, a charming man blessed with an easy smile and a smooth wit, but luck had failed him, in the end. Harry had been a hardscrabble sort, rough around the edges and prone to fits of temper, even in his youth, but dedication and self-sacrifice had served him well, and he was still here while his friend was not. Yes, luck was a fickle thing.

"It's not every man who could survive a hearing like that," Towers continued, and Harry simply grunted in response. The hearing had been a scathing trip down memory lane, conducted by a sharp-nosed woman with a thirst for blood. Every decision, every mistake, every inadvisable liaison from Harry's past had been trotted out and poured over, examined and re-examined, dissected and assessed. The one thing for which he was thankful was that throughout all the unpleasantness, Ruth had stayed away. Somehow, mercifully, she hadn't been called to testify, hadn't been forced to sit before the panel and try to explain their nebulous not-quite relationship. She was such a private person; Harry knew she would have been mortified, to have her heart so callously exposed.

 _Oh, Ruth._

His mind turned toward her, there in the uncomfortable quiet of Towers's verycomfortable car. She would be waiting for him on the Grid, he knew, and that thought had sustained him through his long weeks of suspension. He'd been denied access to the internet, his calls had been monitored, and the obbo van remained parked on the street outside his house, a constant reminder that further contact with her was inadvisable, no matter how dearly he wished to speak to her.

And oh, how he wished.

Thoughts of that night had plagued him incessantly from the moment he first woke to find himself alone in his cold, empty bed. She had felt so _right_ , wrapped in his arms, so warm and safe and so blessedly alive, lying there with him after months of cool disdain and bitter, sniping words. For years he had longed for her, longed to take shelter in the gentle curves of her body, to find out just what they could be, together. It seemed that fate was always against him, however, always against them. Every time he drew near to her, something else would come and pull her away from him, and try though he might, he'd never been able to hold her, never been able to share with her everything he wanted for them. And then she'd come to him, stood on his porch like a dream made into flesh. In a single night, she had wildly surpassed all his expectations, and cruelly shattered all his hopes.

She had _left_ , without a note, without a single word, and, even two months later, the thought confused him even as it saddened him. He couldn't fathom the why of her, but then, he had never really possessed that talent. He had read her personnel file, listened to every psych evaluation, and worked alongside her in close proximity for the better part of eight years. He knew the official diagnosis: _history of clinical depression, difficulty creating and maintaining personal relationships, tendency toward self-destructive behavior._ He had learned she was intensely private, and embarrassed by physical displays of affection. He had learned how to read her face, learned to study the arch of her eyebrow or the quirk of her lip, and draw a thousand meanings from those tiny gestures. What he didn't know, what he had never known, was _why_ she did the things she did _._ They shared a lovely dinner, and then she ran from him. She gave up her life for him, and returned to his arms sad and scared and just a little dead inside. She looked him in the eye, and said _we couldn't be more together,_ and the confusion that drowned him after left him reeling, unable to think, let alone protest. She had shared his bed, given him everything he ever dreamed of, and then she had taken it all away without a single explanation.

He couldn't understand it, all these weeks later; why had she come, and why had she gone? There had been a look in her eyes, a sorrow that left him wrong-footed, when she curled up on his sofa and cradled her glass of whiskey and stared at him like he was both the greatest and the most terrible man she'd ever known. Perhaps he was.

Perhaps he was, because when she held his face in her hands and looked at him, her mouth open to speak, he hadn't given her the chance, had denied her the opportunity to spill her heart to him in favor of kissing her, saying with his body what he could never tell her with his words. Telling her with gentle hands _I love you_ and _I need you_ and _please don't ever leave me._

She hadn't gotten the message, though, even when he had run his fingers down the delicate curve of her spine and cradled her throbbing, dripping sex in his hand, trying to show her that she meant more to him than a quick tumble and a half-hearted promise to ring later. Trying to show her that she meant _everything_ to him. Even now, the thought of her lying there, her back arched beneath him and her hips rising up in a silent plea, the remembrance of her desperate, breathy moans as he buried himself inside her was enough to nearly drive him mad with want for her, and he couldn't help but wonder at that, wonder how he could be so hopelessly, irrevocably enraptured by a single woman.

A woman he had hurt, a thousand times in a thousand different ways. He knew enough about himself to understand what he had done to her, what his love had cost her. From the beginning their relationship had been fraught with betrayal; he'd brought her onto the Grid, knowing she was a mole, knowing that her secondment to Five could very well have ended in professional disgrace for her, but he'd done it anyway. He'd known she was breaking regulations, eavesdropping on that Fortescue bloke, but rather than taking her aside and stopping it, he had pushed Sam, her closest friend on the Grid, into encouraging her fantasies. Ruth's relationship with Sam had never really recovered after that, and Harry knew that he was to blame. Then there was the Angela Wells business; he knew what a complicated relationship Ruth had with her step-brother, knew that Peter was one of the many reasons she was so emotionally crippled, and he had used that hurt to his own advantage, never mind the cost to her. He'd embarrassed her, he'd shouted at her, he'd failed to protect her from the Cotterdam business, and when she'd finally found her feet, finally found a place she could call home, finally built a family for herself, it had all been ripped away from her, because he loved her. She'd come back to him, had even found the courage to ask him for a drink, and then Lucas had taken her, because Harry loved her.

He carried the heavy, bone-crushing guilt for all the things he'd done to her over the years, carried it like Atlas with the weight of the heavens upon his shoulders, cursed for all eternity never to be free from his burden. He didn't deserve her love, he told himself, didn't deserve to be loved by a woman whose life he had so utterly ruined.

A woman who would be waiting for him, when he finally stepped back onto the Grid.

"Sir Harry?" Towers's voice dragged him away from his contemplations of Ruth and his own uncountable sins. He shook his head, as if such a simple gesture could banish her from his mind, and tried to focus.

"I'm sorry, I was miles away."

Towers gave him an odd, sideways sort of look.

"I was just asking if you knew why you'd been reinstated," he said.

Harry shook his head. No, he didn't know why, couldn't imagine how the panel could reach that decision after everything they'd learned about him. Had he been an impartial observer, just reading over the litany of misdeeds that checkered his past would have been enough to make up his mind, to force him to say _this man is not fit to serve our country. Perhaps he never was._

"There's to be a conference in New York in a few months' time," Towers explained. "The U.N. is hosting a summit there, and while the diplomats bicker and obfuscate, the spies are going to hold a gathering of their own. The CIA requested you specifically, to represent our interests at this little symposium."

The CIA. He almost laughed aloud.

"Jim Coaver requested me, is what you mean," Harry observed shrewdly. _Good old Jim,_ he thought to himself. Though the pair of them had gone their separate ways after Berlin they'd remained friends, an unlikely feat in this business, and their friendship was considered beneficial by both their countries. They did small favors for one another and told tall tales about their romantic conquests, and sometimes in the small hours when the weight of all the choices they made had come to be too much, they would call one another, just to chat, just to share with someone who understood what it meant to be the boss. _Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,_ and all that.

Towers nodded. "He did. Despite all the…unpleasantness of the last few months, the DG and I agree. You've got connections with these people, and they respect you." _God only knows why,_ Harry thought. "It's felt that this will be a good opportunity for you to get back in good graces with the establishment, and that you are uniquely suited to this particular task, given your long years of service."

Harry heaved a sigh. He didn't look forward to _this particular task_ ; the idea of sitting in a room full of old men, men like him, jaded from years of death and lies and corruption (and in New York to boot) wasn't exactly appealing, but if this was what it took to get him back to work, back to Ruth, then he would be a good boy and take his medicine.

"I'm happy to serve in whatever capacity you see fit," Harry told him, and Towers actually laughed out loud.

"Good lord, Harry," he chortled. "It won't be that bad. A nice black tie dinner and a few distasteful meetings is a cheap price to pay, in exchange for putting you back at the helm."

The car pulled up in front of Thames House, and Harry prepared to disembark.

"This is your second chance, Harry," Towers told him seriously. "Don't squander it."

* * *

Stepping back onto the Grid after two months' suspension felt like nothing so much as waking from a dream. Like opening his eyes, and feeling the cobwebs drift away as familiar surroundings came into focus, and suddenly everything made sense again. This was right, this was where he belonged, and this was where Ruth would be waiting for him.

Except that as he stood there, just inside the doors, his hands on his hips as he surveyed the little changes the Grid had undergone over the last few weeks, she was nowhere to be found. There were a few new faces, people he didn't recognize and thus did not trust, but no sign of Ruth. His eyes fell on her desk, and with a start he realized it was empty.

"Harry!" Dimitri's voice disturbed him from his examination of the Grid. "Good to have you back," the young man said earnestly, reaching out to shake his hand.

"It's good to be back," Harry answered truthfully. "Where's-"

"Could we talk in your office?" Dimitri asked, cutting him off before he could finish his thought. _That doesn't bode well._

He felt the rising tide of fear washing over him, bitter and sharp, dulling his senses, slowing his steps. She should have been here, she should have been waiting for him, and there was something in Dimitri's expression that gave him pause. He held his tongue for the moment, reminding himself sternly as he followed Dimitri towards his office that he was _boss spook_ , and he needed to act like it. Whatever Dimitri told him, whatever had become of Ruth, he needed to be stern, and calm, and he needed to give nothing away.

He sat in his chair, and couldn't help grumbling to himself for a moment. "She's altered my bloody chair," he muttered. Towers had explained on the drive over that in his absence Section D had been led by one Erin Watts, a transplant from another Section whose reputation as ruthless climber preceded her. Harry had yet to meet the woman, and he wasn't in any hurry to do so.

Dimitri looked at him askance; of course the lad didn't know about Harry's relationship with this chair, about how particular he was when it came to the arrangement of his office. _Ruth would have known_ , he thought. Ruth would have understood his frustration, and probably cracked a little joke about it. There was no understanding like the understanding between two people who have a long history, he mused; no one could ever know him the way she did, because no one else had experienced the horrors they had, together. Battle forged, that's what they were. Blood and pain had bound them, irrevocably. ' _Til death do us part._

"Out with it," Harry said, trying to sound authoritative and wondering if the contrite-looking young man standing there with his hands in his pockets could see straight through him.

"The day after…everything happened, Beth was decommissioned." Harry opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but Dimitri beat him to the punch. "It was felt, by the DG and the Home Secretary, that given her past and given that Lucas," rage bubbled up inside of Harry at the very mention of the name; he would have to issue orders that the words _Lucas North_ never be spoken again in his hearing. Dimitri noticed his anger, but carried on admirably. "Given that Lucas was the one who vouched for her, she couldn't be trusted. Erin wasn't happy about it, but she had to follow orders."

That was unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected. Beth had the makings of a good field agent; she was tough and quick on her feet, but with a sweet face that gave the impression of empathy, even when she was lying through her teeth. It was unfair and unkind that she had been painted with the same brush as Lucas, taken down as a traitor when she had done nothing but prove her loyalty time and time again. She was resilient, though, and she had a very unique skill set; Harry didn't doubt that she would find her feet in the private sector. It wasn't Beth he was concerned about, it wasn't Beth's absence that had his heart pounding feverishly against his chest, and Dimitri knew it. Dimitri had deliberately chosen to avoid the subject of Ruth so far, but he couldn't do so forever. Harry simply stared at him, giving him the patented "disapproving Section Head" look until the lad bowed his head, and spoke again.

"Ruth's gone as well."

The words hit him like a punch to the gut. He'd been expecting that, from the moment he first saw her empty desk, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to believe that she was really gone. She'd stayed with him through so much, through so much loss, so much betrayal, had stayed when no one else would, and he couldn't believe that she had just given up. His steely resolve crumbled, in that moment.

"What do you mean 'Ruth's gone as well'?" Harry demanded. "They haven't decommissioned her, surely. She had nothing to do with-"

"She resigned, Harry. The day after Beth left."

And with that, Harry's world crumbled.

She hadn't just walked away from his bed, she'd walked away from _him_ as well. He propped his elbows on his desk and dropped his face into his hands, not trusting himself to speak, or to look Dimitri in the eye without falling apart entirely.

"I think Beth must know where she's gone, but I haven't been able to speak with either of them," Dimitri told him.

"Get out." Two words, ground out from behind clenched teeth, but they were enough to send Dimitri packing, silently sliding the door closed behind him as he went.

 _She resigned, Harry._

Of all the words in the English language, no combination held the power to utterly shatter Harry Pearce the way those three did. Ruth had resigned, and left without so much as a _goodbye_ , without telling him where she'd gone, without telling him _why._ She had _left_ , and he was utterly alone, wondering how this could have come to pass.

 _It was unfair of you to love me._

Not for the first time, he wondered at the wisdom of keeping Albany's obsolescence a secret from her. At the time, he'd felt that the less she knew, the better, felt that he could stand her anger for a few weeks if it meant that she could stand before the inquiry panel and truthfully deny any involvement with Harry's treason. Now, though, now she was gone and he would never have the chance to tell her that he hadn't sacrificed millions of lives to save her, that he had traded something worthless in exchange for the most precious thing in his world- _her_. Now she was gone and he would never hold her in his arms again, never again feel the exquisite bliss of sinking himself into her welcoming warmth. Never again look through the windows of his office and find her watching him, that soft, steady smile reassuring him, calming him, keeping him focused.

For a moment he entertained the idea of tracking her down, of marching into the Home Secretary's office and resigning before going round to Malcolm's and scouring the globe for her. Only for a moment though, before he recalled the way she'd looked, when he let her into his house that night, the way she had left him sleeping in post-coital quiet, the way she had resigned without sending him so much as a postcard to explain. Wherever she had gone, she didn't intend for him to follow, and that was a bitter pill to swallow.

Never once in all his days and weeks of enforced solitude had it ever occurred to him that she might actually leave. He assumed she'd be cross with him, distant and perhaps a bit sharp, the way she was after his ill-timed proposal ( _what a cock up that was,_ he thought grimly), but in all his imaginings she was always _here_. Perhaps that was his greatest mistake, when it came to dealing with Ruth; perhaps he was so lost in his imaginings of how things couldbe, he never really saw things as they were _._

Ruth was gone, and he had let her go. He had let her slip through his fingers, had let his love wound her one time too many.

 _I don't know what I'll do without you._

 _Can't go on, must go on._

The words swirled through his mind, rising from the ashes of memories of two different conversations, from two awful, gut-wrenching moments separated by four years and a lifetime of grief, forming a refrain, a sort of question and answer. What would he do without Ruth? He would go on. He had no other choice.

He didn't have the luxury of asking himself if it was worth it, if the decades of fighting tooth and nail, if the lives lost, if the battles won were worth the price he'd had to pay, the price of losing her. That was the sort of question that drove men mad, he knew. He'd spent his entire life butting heads with odious politicians and corrupt spooks and fighting a never-ending war against the shady, ever-changing face of evil, and he could not ask himself if it was worth the price he had to pay, because he feared the answer would be _no._

* * *

 **Please don't be too upset! Remember that characters are not always reliable narrators, and can't always see the full picture. More soon.**


	4. Chapter 4

_Dumbed down and numbed by time and age  
_ _Your dreams that catch the world the cage_

 _\- I and Love and You/The Avett Brothers_

* * *

 _United Nations Headquarters, Manhattan, New York  
_ _Office of Dr. Rachel Wallace, translator  
_ _Three months later_

"Are you going to this thing tomorrow night?" Charlie asked, sprawled in a chair on the other side of her desk.

Rachel sighed, running her fingers through her soft, dark hair and wondering for the thousandth time if she should cut it. _It's getting too long,_ she thought absently.

"I think I have to," she answered. She wasn't pleased at the prospect and she didn't hide her dissatisfaction; she would leave the optimism to Charlie. That had become a sort of running joke between them, she the staid, reserved Englishwoman, and he the relentlessly enthusiastic American. He would tease her, and she would chide him, and all the while each of them wondered whether perhaps there was some more hiding beneath their friendly banter. It wouldn't take much, she knew, to push this tenuous friendship into the realm of the romantic, but that was the last thing she wanted. She'd only just found her feet, only just come to terms with who she was, and she was nowhere near ready to share her bed or her life with anyone else. For his part, Charlie seemed content to flirt, and tease, and bide his time. She wasn't sure if his patience should be a comfort to her or not.

"Oh, come on, Rach, it won't be that bad." His eyes were sparkling at her mischievously; _he does have lovely eyes,_ she thought as she watched him grinning at her. His eyes were soft and brown, and somewhere, in the deep dark recesses of her heart, she knew her fondness for them stemmed not so much from their color as from the way they reminded her of another pair of eyes that used to watch her with a similar amusement, and a similar barely-disguised yearning.

"Standing around with a bunch of stuffy diplomats sipping cocktails and lying to one another for hours on end does not sound like fun to me," she told him in clipped tones. Rachel was known about the office for her almost aggressive resistance to any activity that could be deemed even remotely social; that reticence to engage was a particularly strange trait for someone in her chosen field. It was her job to attend conferences and parties and quiet backroom chats, to stand behind the shoulder of various dignitaries and quietly, efficiently translate in any one of the wide array of languages in which she was fluent. Rachel much preferred translating correspondence to those face-to-face meetings, but needs must.

"You'll get to wear a pretty dress, though," Charlie pointed out.

He had a point there.

Her dress for the upcoming gala was absolutely lovely; it was an earthy sort of mauve, rouched slightly to accentuate her waist, with a daring, sheer lace back. The fabric was soft and floaty, and the overall effect was more delicate and feminine than anything she normally wore. Rachel was quite looking forward to wearing it, and quite looking forward to Charlie's response to it. What she wasn't looking forward to, however, was the guest list.

There was something off about this party tomorrow night, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. She hadn't seen the full guest list, just a rundown of the American personnel and the nations that would be represented. There were entirely too many people making the trip up from Langley for her to be entirely comfortable, but there was no way she could beg off now. She couldn't very well say _I have connections in the intelligence community and I'm terribly worried that someone might recognize me._ Rachel Wallace was a former university professor turned diplomatic translator, not the ghost of a burnt out spook, and there was no reason for her to fret. But in the farthest corner of her mind, in the little cubbyhole where she'd hidden away the person she used to be, she was terrified.

"And hey, free booze." Charlie's words brought her back to the present, and she gave a toss of her head, struggling admirably to focus on him, and to keep from giving voice to her suspicions about the many CIA agents who would be in attendance. He was a linguist, like her, a former academic who had glanced once at the guest list, shrugged his shoulders, and asked her if she wanted to take the Greeks, and leave the French to him. He had seen the names, and he had not registered their significance, and any attempt on her part to explain the situation to him would lead to more questions than answers. So she kept her worries to herself, and chose instead to take a more light-hearted approach.

"You're incorrigible."

He grinned. "You like that about me."

The silence that followed this pronouncement was tight and sharp and stunning in its familiarity. Rachel knew this particular dance very well; he would push the boundaries of their friendship, and she would look away, and neither would acknowledge the tension mounting between them. There was no telling if Charlie knew the steps as well as she; despite their burgeoning camaraderie, neither of them had shared much about their personal lives outside work, and Rachel wasn't about to change that now. She had no idea where to even begin such a task.

"Well, I'll be there, at any rate," Charlie said, taking her lack of a response as his cue to leave and rising from his chair. "I'll see you tomorrow, Rachel."

"Have a good night, Charlie," she answered with a false cheerfulness. He looked at her for a long moment, as if he were about to say something else, but then he thought better of it, and departed in silence.

 _Oh, Charlie,_ Rachel thought, leaning back in her chair with a sigh.

It was exhausting sometimes, being Rachel Wallace.

Life as Rachel Wallace was simple, and followed a strict routine. It started in the mornings; every day she upon waking she shuffled down the stairs, and made herself a cup of tea. In the early days of her expatriation she had been alarmed to discover that there were no electric kettles available in any of the stores in her neighborhood; in fact, when she asked after one, she was met with blank, uncomprehending stares. A few determined sales clerks had tried to sell her old fashioned, stovetop kettles, but Rachel was not having it. Online shopping became her dearest friend, after that. Electric kettle, proper tea, her favorite biscuits; all of these came to her courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service.

With her tea in hand she would sit by her small table, the kitchen brightened by the early morning sunshine streaming in through a large bay window, and she would scroll through the news sites, looking for anything out of place. Most days she stayed away from the BBC, frightened of how she might react if she saw a familiar face or read a familiar name. The New York Times, CNN, NBC; those were safer choices, and she devoured them all with gusto.

After perusing the news, she would troop upstairs for a shower, dress for work in her usual uniform of dark cardigan and darker trousers, and head out the door. The commute from her brownstone in Brooklyn to her office in Manhattan was long and crowded, but she rather enjoyed it. One never knew what one might find, on the subway in New York. There were buskers aplenty, some of them quite good, and on one particular Friday night, there had even been an impromptu performance in her car, which she enjoyed immensely. She always dropped a few bills in the hats or open guitar cases they kept at their feet, admiring the way they followed their passion. Sometimes there were preachers, gaunt faced men in dirty clothes screaming about the end of days, but her fellow passengers always steadfastly ignored them, focusing instead on phones or books or newspapers until the interruption had passed.

On her days off, if the weather was fine, she inevitably made her way to Prospect Park; she could sit by the water, and watch the pedal-boats, or make her way out to the carousel, and smile at all the happy children. On Sundays she went to the Greenmarket, where she could buy fresh vegetables or flowers or even fish, if she got there early enough. On one memorable occasion she'd even visited the zoo. On cloudy days, when her thoughts turned toward the morose, she went to the Brooklyn Public Library instead, losing herself in the peaceful quiet amongst the endless shelves. Everything about her life was simple. _Simple, and elegant, for once._

And through it all, day in and day out, she was completely, utterly alone.

Rachel knew that this was by design, that her isolation was the result of the choices she'd made, the things she'd done. If she didn't share her life with anyone, no one could hurt her, and, conversely, she couldn't hurt anyone else. In her experience, love always ended in blood and death and pain, and she was determined not to visit that horror on anyone else. Her father, her husband, so many of her friends, her dearest love; all of them were gone, ripped away from her by circumstances that were simultaneously beyond her control, and of her own making. It was better, this way, better to be miserable and alone than to visit her misery on someone else.

And, if she didn't open up, didn't share her bed and her thoughts and her hopes with anyone else, she didn't have to explain the nightmares that woke her screaming in the dead of night, the visions of familiar, beloved faces splattered with blood and whispering to her over and over again, _it was your turn, Ruth._

She leaned forward in her chair, propping her elbows on her desk and resting her head in hands, trying valiantly to reorient herself, to remember who she was. _You aren't Ruth anymore,_ she told herself firmly, _you're Rachel. Just Rachel._ For nearly six months now she'd been Rachel, and some days were harder than others.

There were a few superficial differences between Ruth and Rachel; Rachel's hair was longer, and most days she wore glasses, and she never, ever wore skirts to work. Rachel smiled more, and laughed more, and never waxed poetical about ancient philosophers, and never, ever got into arguments with her boss about the moral implications of thermobaric bombs. Rachel didn't ask too many questions, and she always, always knocked before entering a coworker's office. In the beginning, when she was still trying to figure out who Rachel was, she'd worked up a legend, written down all of Rachel's character traits and her family history and bought her a ring to wear on her right hand, a little silver ring set with a blue stone, and made up a story about how it was a gift given to her by a dear friend who passed away suddenly a few years before. Rachel never left the house without that ring.

Surprisingly, the process of becoming Rachel had taught her rather a lot about who Ruth had been. Ruth had been clever and kind, and so, so scared. Scared of everything. Ruth had lived her life in fear that at any moment, every good and beautiful thing in her world could be snatched away, cruelly, inexplicably, irrevocably. Ruth had been so scared of losing happiness that she'd never given it a chance to bloom, had been so sure that love was beyond her grasp that she had never acknowledged it, when it came her way. And oh, how she had loved; she had loved fiercely, deeply, violently. She had loved a man whose voice was a thunderclap, whose heart was a brushfire, whose hands supported the very pillars of the earth. She had loved him enough to die for him, to kill for him, to live and breathe for him. Oh, Ruth had loved, and oh, Ruth had lost.

But Ruth was no more. Ruth had vanished from the face of the earth, disappeared without a trace, and somewhere deep in the heart of the city that never sleeps a woman named Rachel had sprung up to take her place.

There were times, times like this night, when the weight of being Rachel Wallace was almost too much to bear. There were times when Ruth yearned to burst free, to shed this skin she'd been living in and announce herself to the world, consequences be damned. There were times when Rachel's hand would reach for the phone at Ruth's urging, dialing an old familiar number, Ruth's words about to fall from her lips, but always Rachel caught herself just in time. Ruth had had her chance, her moment in the sun, one extraordinary opportunity to wrap her hands around the most precious thing in the world, and Ruth had let it go. Never mind that Ruth had forgiven him, never mind that Ruth had forgiven herself, never mind that those old wounds had scabbed over, healing in the heat of a New York summer; Ruth was no more.

 _You're Rachel now, you'll go on being Rachel, and let the past stay buried,_ she told herself, rising at last from her chair to gather her bag and make her way down to the street. Ruth was no more, and Rachel could not mourn for a man she'd never met.


	5. Chapter 5

_The highway sets the traveler's stage  
_ _All exits look the same_

 _\- I and Love and You/The Avett Brothers_

* * *

 _John F. Kennedy International Airport  
_ _Queens, New York  
_ _That same night_

 _Ruth always wanted to come to New York,_ Harry thought to himself as he struggled through the jostling sea of humanity steaming out of the airport in an endless wave all around him. She'd told him once that New York was the most linguistically diverse city in the world, that more than 800 different languages were spoken here on a daily basis. As he walked along the pavement, following the government-issued driver he'd been lent for the evening, Harry had no trouble imagining it was so. He was surrounded by a mass of people babbling merrily away in a myriad of tongues, all of them talking over and around and through each other until their voices merged into a single sound, their differences unintelligible in the midst of the din. _Alle Menschen werden Brüder_ ; when he heard the words, echoing in the vaults of his mind, they were spoken in her voice.

Funny, how she could still affect him so after nearly six months without her. Funny, really, that in his darkest moments it was the memory of her soft and steady hand that stayed him; funny, that when he felt himself right on the cusp of making some untenable decision he would always ask himself _what would Ruth think of me, if I did this?_ It wasn't the same as having her near, of course, wasn't the same as listening to her counsel, but it was close enough, and despite everything that had happened between them – or, perhaps, because of it – she was still his moral compass, she was still his guiding light.

He wasn't angry with her for leaving, not once, not for a moment. He was angry with her for not telling him, angry with her for not giving him a chance to stop her, _furious_ with her for not leaving any sign of where she'd gone, but he did not blame her for going. There were days, many days, when Harry longed to disappear himself. And there was something else that was funny; the closest he had ever come to resigning and leaving his life behind had been in the days after Ros's funeral, after Ruth's rejection of his proposal, and it had been Ruth who begged him to stay. It had been Ruth who convinced him that he was needed, that what he did mattered. Perhaps she felt he owed it to her to stay, to continue to stand on the wall, after everything she'd given up to keep him there.

When they reached the car, his driver opened the door, and then without a word took his holdall, going to stow the bag in the boot while Harry slipped into the back seat. _Bloody Americans,_ he thought, shaking his head as he took in his surroundings. For months they'd been a thorn in his side, the Cousins constantly sending over extradition requests and coded memos about international cooperation, and Jim Coaver had been the worst of the lot, sending almost daily emails in the name of keeping him "updated" as to the developments with the upcoming conference. The whole situation reminded Harry forcefully of similar circumstances a few years before, circumstances that had very nearly cost him his job. He'd grown quite cross indeed, back then, and even Ruth's steady presence had not been enough to keep his temper in check. But she had stayed with him, throughout that ordeal, had mouthed off to Juliet and sent him food parcels and sat with him on a bus, his fingertips dancing across her skin while their hearts beat in time to a melody only they could hear. _When was that?_ He wondered, shaking his head slightly to himself as the driver slid behind the wheel – _on the wrong bloody side –_ and started up the engine. Must have been almost six years ago. Not so very long, for a man who'd seen as many years as Harry Pearce, but it felt like a lifetime. So much had changed, in the last six years, Ruth not least of all.

For the perhaps the millionth time his thoughts drifted back to Ruth and the way she'd behaved that night, the last time he'd seen her. He thought of how she'd finally found the courage to come to him, no matter what others might think of her. He thought of how her hands had trembled, when she reached out to touch his face. He thought of how she'd looked in that moment, and how he had known, deep down in the darkest pit of his soul, that she was going to leave him. He had known, and he hadn't let her say it, had instead used every weapon in his arsenal to try to coerce her into staying. Nothing he tried had worked, in the end, and he had woken alone, and though he was heartbroken, he wasn't entirely surprised.

Over the last few months Harry had struggled to find his equilibrium in a world without her. Section-D had gone through six analysts in as many weeks, before he found one that stuck. The woman's name was Clara, a calm, quiet former Cambridge lecturer who dressed conservatively and always knocked before entering his office. Clara got on well with everyone, which was a blessing, given that Harry was only just now finding his feet with the new team. Erin was ruthless but hesitant to think outside the box, even when the occasion called for it; Callum was brash and constantly on the defensive, overly sensitive of his status as "the new boy"; Dimitri and Tariq were withdrawn and still reeling from Albany and the loss of both Beth and Ruth; and in the background all the other analysts, all the other techies, all the other field agents were quietly reeling, like a family of little children whose mother has died and whose father has grown distant and strange in his grief. It was a terrible time to be throwing a new senior analyst into the mix, but for her part Clara had asked no questions and made no assumptions, and for that Harry was grateful. Despite being very capable, she had none of Ruth's flair, none of her passion, and she was a Cambridge grad to boot. In quiet moments, Harry often wondered how the two women would get on, should they ever meet. He imagined it might go quite well between them, given that they were both solemn and blindingly intelligent, though perhaps a bit awkward at times.

Such thoughts often led him to wondering what he would say, given the chance to speak to Ruth one more time. Would he admonish her, for leaving him the way she had? Would he tell her how deeply she had wounded him, how completely she had devastated him, how utterly she had enraged him? Or would he instead say nothing at all, simply turn and walk away from her, as she had done to him so many times before?

The truth was he didn't know, and likely never would. She had abandoned him, his Ruth, his dearest love, his beating heart, his exploding conscience; and even in that act of desertion, he had sensed a selflessness in her that prevented him from cutting her out of his heart entirely. It was never a lack of regard that kept them apart, he knew, but rather an overabundance of it. He loved her too much to demand more of her than she was willing to give, and she loved him too much to give him her all. They had lived in fear, the pair of them, fear that in the pursuit of something more they might lose what little they had. She had left him, because she believed she had destroyed him, believed he had destroyed her, believed that together they had crossed one line too many. He knew this, because he knew her.

And what could he tell her, what words could possibly convince her that they were not beyond redemption? They had seen terrible things, done terrible things, sat side-by-side with bowed heads and trembling hands through funeral after funeral after funeral, somehow surviving, never knowing why. What words to say to mend a shattered soul? What words to say to unbreak a heart? Harry Pearce was a soldier and a spy, and though he shared Ruth's deep and abiding passion for the written word, he had very little of the poet in him. Always before he had wooed with deeds rather than words, and to his mind it seemed that Ruth was a woman who needed words. Bouquets of words, words strung together like pearls on a necklace, words to adorn her and adore her and absolve her of her guilt, and though he had spent months and months drinking and thinking and drinking some more, inspiration had not struck.

Harry sat and stared through the window at the lights of the city flashing by him, neon and uncaring, and pondered the futility of his heart. _Malcolm would know the words,_ Harry thought to himself. Malcolm had always known the words, when Harry's own had failed him. And Malcolm would know how to find her, should Harry ever muster up the courage to ring him and explain all that had transpired since his departure from the Grid. Suspicions festered in the back of Harry's mind, suspicions about how completely Ruth had disappeared, her bank accounts as empty as her abandoned flat, leaving behind no trace of Ruth or any of her established legends. She would have needed help, to clear her accounts and arrange her travel and create a new identity, and if there was one person who could have set it all up for her in a matter of days, it was Malcolm.

That chafed, that knowledge that she had likely gone to their oldest friend for aid. That Malcolm should help her was not distressing in itself; what bothered Harry so about this notion was that Malcolm had helped her, and never spoke a word about it to Harry. They chatted from time to time, regulations be damned; old spies have few friends, and Harry wasn't about to lose the best friend he'd ever had in the name of following the rules. Harry had attended Malcolm's mother's funeral, a few weeks prior, and taken an unprecedented three days off from work to mourn with the man, to drink glass after glass of top-notch whiskey and reminisce about the old days. And through all their recollections, Malcolm had carefully avoided the subject of Ruth, and it had been that reticence to speak about her that solidified Harry's misgivings. Harry had held his tongue, not wanting to intrude upon the grief of a man he respected so greatly, but as his sleek black car made its way over the bridge and into Manhattan he decided that, upon his return, he and Malcolm were going to have a heart to heart. Malcolm would know where she had gone, and even if Harry never found the words to say to her, never followed through on his half-formed plan to find her, he would at least know that she was safe.

This was Harry's curse, it seemed, to be forever separated from the ones he loved, watching from afar, a shield in the darkness, protecting and serving but never engaging. He watched over his daughter, keeping tabs on the political unrest in whatever godforsaken hellhole she'd travelled to this time, asking local agents to keep an eye out for her, hungrily consuming every detail of her journeys but never, ever presuming to play an active role in her life. Catherine was easy to track in Lebanon, and Palestine, and even Syria for a few hellacious weeks before Harry had put his foot down and arranged to have her carted out of that country on a military transport, kicking and screaming all the while. Graham was a harder case; though his son had never left the borders of the realm he possessed a unique talent for disappearing into the ether, losing himself amongst the shady, unsavory characters of Britain's dark underbelly. Still Harry persevered, tracking his son through CCTV and police arrest records, bailing him out but never quite managing to save him. The love of a father for his children compelled him, and no matter how fraught their relationships might be, no matter how much strife and strain there was between them, Harry would always watch over them, because he loved them.

And he would find Ruth, and watch over her as well; he would stand on the wall, and watch, and ward off the evil that threatened to drown the ones he loved. He didn't know what else to do.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I promise I haven't forgotten** _ **Something Wonderful**_ **, it's just that this fic has demanded more of my attention in recent days. This story has mercifully decided to stick to my original plan, and so it will come to an end shortly, and I will return once more to our sleepy seaside village. Thank you for taking this journey with me, and for all your kind words of support.**

* * *

 _That woman she's got eyes that shine  
_ _Like a pair of stolen polished dimes  
_ _She asked to dance, I said it's fine  
_ _I'll see you in the morning time_

 _-I and Love and You/The Avett Brothers_

* * *

 _Manhattan, New York  
_ _U.N. Headquarters  
_ _8:00 p.m. the next night_

The grand ballroom was ostentatious in an almost-tasteful sort of way, with its high arching ceiling and white polished marble floor; chandeliers sparkled at regular intervals and the ornate drapes on the long row of tall windows on the western wall were tied back to allow in the last sunlight of a beautiful summer evening. The buzz of quiet, restrained conversation hung over the room, announcing the crowd within much like the sound that heralds a swarm of bees happily at work. A large string band played soft, generic songs from a small stage in the corner, each musician attired in concert black and completely unmemorable. The bar ran the length of the back wall, already doing business as discrete bartenders served up wine and champagne and sharply dressed waiters passed through the crowd carrying plates of hors d'oeuvres with unpronounceable names.

Rachel stepped into the fray with some trepidation, eyes scanning the assembled masses for familiar faces and clocking the exits the way an old spook will do. She'd found that some habits were so deeply ingrained in her that no amount of mental gymnastics could break them; deep down, in her bones, in the very structure of her DNA, she was still the same woman she'd always been, and that woman needed to know who was in the room, and the fastest, safest way to escape, should disaster strike.

Disaster did not seem to be in the offing this evening, for which she was very grateful. The gala was about introductions and what the American delegation referred to as "networking"; she was only here to shake hands and answer questions, not to do any real heavy-duty translations. Her task over the next few days would be less about helping visiting dignitaries understand their English-speaking counterparts, and more about assuring the Americans that the translations they were given were on the level. More than once a shoddy translation had very nearly spelled the end of positive international relations, and some of those miscommunications had been deliberate. It was her job to make sure that everyone received the same message, regardless of hidden agendas.

From her post just inside the doors she found Charlie, handsome as ever in his tux, weaving his way through the throng of people with his eyes trained on her and his ever-present grin firmly in place. He was such a _nice_ man, so earnest as to border on boyishness, and she knew he meant well. Politics and deception were so far beyond him; he was the sort of man who said precisely what he meant, and never presumed to manipulate or cajole her. His innocence should have been a comfort to her, after so many years of shady dealings and last-minute betrayals, but in truth it just exhausted her. This was not a man who would ever truly understand her, understand the things she'd done, the things she'd seen. This was not a man who would ever truly know her, and this was not a man she could love.

As he drew near she fought the urge to sigh, and the stronger urge to simply turn around and leave; Rachel was feeling very un-Rachel-like tonight indeed, and she wasn't sure she was prepared for hours of Charlie's effusive, nearly continual chatter. There was a sort of restlessness about her tonight, the feeling that Ruth used to get before a big operation; she was reminded suddenly of the time, a few years before, when she'd been sent back to GCHQ at Harry's orders, and played the part of Adam's overlooked, overworked cousin. There was a rush of excitement then, underneath her fear, and she felt it again tonight. Over the years she'd become almost addicted to it, addicted to the adrenaline that fired her blood during an operation, knowing that the clock was running and the fate of so many rested in her hands. She became addicted to the feeling of being needed, of being part of something bigger than herself, bigger than her quiet flat and her two little cats and her weekly phone calls to her mother. Like most addictions, hers had taken over her entire life, colored her every action until her work – and the rush it gave her – was the second-most important thing in her world. The most important thing in Ruth's world had been Harry, Harry and the way he looked at her, the way he trusted her, the way he loved her.

 _Stop it_ , she told herself reflexively, _stop._ It would not to do to think of Harry tonight, would not do to imagine he was here with her, whispering his quiet, steady guidance in her ear through a comm, keeping her safe from a distance. She had sacrificed Harry, once again, had walked away from her heart's dearest longing because she had not known what else to do, and now was not the time to ponder the twistings and turnings that had been their almost love affair.

"You look amazing," Charlie said sincerely as he reached her, leaning over to kiss her cheek in a gesture that was, for them, both deeply personal and unusually affectionate. She smiled at him and murmured something flattering about his tux in response. She really did appreciate the compliment; it wasn't the sort of thing she heard very often. In an effort to bolster her confidence she'd taken her time with her hair tonight, curling it slightly before pinning it at the nape of her neck in an elegant up-do. Her only jewelry consisted of a pair of small, sparkling stud earrings and her silver ring; the dress itself was lovely and elegant, and needed no further adornment. Charlie had yet to see the back of the dress, and for a moment Rachel was suddenly hesitant about her choice of ensemble, and the message the sheer lace might send to this handsome, charismatic man who already seemed to only have eyes for her.

"Quite a turn out, isn't it?" he asked conversationally, standing beside her and staring out across the ballroom.

It certainly was; more than three hundred people, all in black tie, were scattered around the vast ballroom, sipping champagne from clear glass flutes and chatting quietly while the music wafted over them and everyone studiously ignored the empty dancefloor. No doubt there would be dancing, as the evening wore on, and perhaps more than a few inadvisable alcohol-fueled liaisons, but the night was still young, and so far the guests were behaving themselves.

Rachel couldn't tell the spooks from the dignitaries, but Ruth could, and it was with Ruth's eyes that she scanned the room, taking note of who was standing where and talking to whom. Being two people at once was exhausting, but her concerns about the possible nefarious undercurrent to tonight's proceedings had awakened Ruth's inner spook, and she simply couldn't turn it off. It would be a fine long to walk, between clueless diplomat and jaded spy, but she would have to make it work. She had no other choice.

"Have you made contact yet?" she asked quietly, and Charlie nodded, and if he found her choice of words somewhat strange, he did not comment on it.

"The French delegation was already half-drunk when they showed up. They're over there," he gestured vaguely towards the corner of the room, "and they're showing no interest in speaking to anyone else at present. You?"

"Not yet; I only just arrived."

He grinned at her impishly. "In that case, I suggest we make a pit stop at the bar and get something to drink before we head into the breach. What do you say?"

She nodded her assent, and Charlie reached out to place one large, strong hand at the small of her back and lead her towards the bar. She didn't miss the way he tensed, when his hand came into contact with the soft lace of her dress, and she definitely didn't miss the little double take he did, peering discreetly over her shoulder to get a better look. _It's going to be a long night._

* * *

 _9:00 p.m._

"Hal, you old son of a bitch!" Jim crowed when he saw him, coming over to clap him on the shoulder. "I was starting to think you weren't going to show."

Harry gave him a tight little smile that came across more like a grimace.

"Oh, come now Jim, I think you know me better than that," he said.

They were stood together in an alcove just outside the ballroom; Harry had only just arrived, feeling a bit groggy and out of sorts. His internal clock was still set on GMT, and it was telling him in no uncertain terms that it was well past time for him to be in bed. _No rest for the weary_ , he thought, reaching up to fiddle absently with his bow tie. The tuxedo was certainly not Harry's favorite mode of dress, but _when in Rome,_ and all that. Jim wore his well, with the sort of easy confidence Harry had come to expect from his old friend and rival.

"Come on, we'll go in together," Jim said, and they did just that.

As they made their way across the ballroom Harry's eyes roved endlessly from one side to another. He had made the trip alone, rather than in the company of the six or seven British diplomats who had merited an invitation to the conference, the better to avoid arousing suspicions. The secret summit of intelligence officers was not on the books and so officially, he was on holiday; it wouldn't do to draw attention to himself and risk the barrage of questions his presence here would likely raise. During his brief sweep of the room he found that his fellow spies seemed to jump out at him, made noticeable not so much by the way they stood out as by the way they _didn't;_ there was something unique about the way an old spook could fade into the background at will, and like always recognizes like.

There was an air of barely suppressed excitement in the room, as little clusters of people babbled away in a variety of languages and the waiters and spies mingled among them with ease, watching and listening as alcohol loosened their tongues and made them bold. Harry had chosen to arrive a little later, the better to slip under the radar, and his searching eyes rather quickly found the British delegation, gathered around a single table on the near side of the room and speaking to one another quietly, their backs turned toward the milling press of bodies that covered the center of the floor.

"Don't worry, Harry," Jim told him, noting where his gaze had fallen. "There's so many people here tonight, and so much booze, no one's going to notice a pair of old spies reminiscing in a corner."

"Is that to be the order of the evening, then?" Harry asked as they wound their way through the press of bodies, heading for the bar.

Jim laughed. "Jesus, I had almost forgotten the way you talk," he said. "Come on, relax! I know the penguin suit's not the most comfortable thing in the world, but let's order up a pair of whiskeys and put our feet up and talk about the old days for a while. Our first session isn't until later, and if we start drinking now, we just might have enough time to get good and drunk before it starts."

Harry grunted at that. There was something about working in covert intelligence that made spies, as a species, prefer dark, quiet places for their assignations, and he supposed he shouldn't really be surprised that their meeting was to take place tonight, rather than in the morning. All the same he would much preferred to have spent the evening in his very comfortable hotel suite, drinking by himself, as opposed to keeping company with one of the most painfully energetic men he'd ever met.

Rather fortuitously they found two empty stools, tucked away in a corner of the bar, and Jim flagged down the man behind the counter, ordering two very nice glasses of whiskey indeed. Harry settled himself onto his seat, tugging at his cuff links and scanning the room once more while he waited for his drink.

A woman in an earthy, almost-purple dress caught his eye across the room; her back was turned toward him, and he found the view quite pleasant indeed, given that her pale skin was shining softly through a veil of sheer, delicate lace. There was something about her, something about the curve of her body and the curl of her dark hair that pulled at his memory, but before he could put his finger on it their drinks had arrived, and Jim insisted on a toast. When Harry glanced up again, the woman was gone.

* * *

 _10:15 p.m._

"You have an interesting accent," the head of the Greek delegation told her as they stood sipping their wine and watching the dancefloor with feigned interest. They were speaking quietly to one another in his native tongue, making those connections that Rachel's employers felt would be beneficial to international goodwill and camaraderie. For some reason – a reason she was loath to ponder – Charlie had insisted on remaining by her side, despite the fact that he didn't speak a word of Greek and the fact that the delegates kept casting odd, sideways looks at him. She gave a little shake of her head, forcing her attention away from the hapless man hovering near her elbow and onto the diplomat she was currently schmoozing.

"I'm from England originally, but I lived in Cyprus for a time," she explained, not realizing until it was too late that Rachel had never been anywhere near Cyprus. _Thank goodness Charlie can't understand us,_ she thought wearily. She was finding the charade particularly hard to maintain tonight. A deep sense of foreboding had risen in her as the night wore on, like a wind that starts soft as a whisper before roaring into a rage, the moment before the storm hits. Her almost-panic mingled with the resentment she felt at her circumstances, a highly combustible combination that threatened to blow her cover entirely. She needed to reel herself in, and quickly, before she said something she'd _really_ regret.

For a few minutes more she engaged the diplomat in a discussion about how she had enjoyed Cyprus, though she made no mention of a murdered husband and an orphaned boy with an angel's face; those memories, that pain, belonged to someone else. The diplomat (his name was _Dimitris_ , he told her, and Rachel nearly choked on her wine in shock) had family there, but his heart was Greek, and he playfully extoled the virtues of his country over the little island that had been Ruth's temporary sanctuary and her utter ruin. Eventually, she managed to break away, brandishing her empty glass and making polite excuses. Charlie might not have understood her words, but her intent was clear, and as she stepped away from Dimitris Charlie took his place at her side, his hand drawn once more to her back as though by some magnetic force. The warmth of his skin almost touching hers through the thin lace of her dress made her feel twitchy and off-balance; she longed to shake him off, to admonish him, to say _do you have any idea who the bloody hell I am?_ She held her tongue, however, and submitted to his presumptions with as much grace as she could muster.

To reach the bar they first had to skirt the edges of the dancefloor, and as they did, a strange sort of longing overcame her. The music wafting towards her over the clamor of reserved conversation was hauntingly familiar, soft and sweet, and it tugged at her heart. She couldn't recall the name of the song, but for a moment she longed to lose herself in it. Charlie might not be the man she truly longed to dance with, but he was here, and Rachel cared for him. Before she could think better of it, she swerved out of his grasp and deposited her empty glass on a nearby table.

"Would you like to dance?" she asked her bemused suitor, and to his credit he only hesitated a moment before replying in an even tone of voice, "I would love to."

* * *

 _10:23 p.m._

With his arm once more around her, Charlie led the way toward the dancefloor where the band, consisting of a variety of gentle, well-amplified strings, was plucking out a soft, slow song that he rather liked. Rachel would probably know the song, he mused as they turned to one another and slid into a dance hold; she would probably know the song, and the composer, and his entire, no doubt alcohol-soaked life story. She was full of information like that, juicy little tidbits that she compiled and stored away for safe keeping, trotting them out at will and constantly, consistently amazing him with both the breadth and the depth of her knowledge.

What a rarity she was, he mused as her warm, slender body pressed against his own and swayed tantalizingly in time to the music; stunningly attractive, to his mind, but so intellectually engaging as to be almost intimidating. She relaxed slightly as they danced, and with every inch she gave him he took a mile, tightening his arms around her reflexively, learning the feel of her beneath his hands. He wasn't sure what had inspired her to ask him to dance, but he was so, _so_ glad she had, and would have been more than happy to dance with her all night, if she'd let him.

The song drew to a close, and Charlie gave her one last little twirl before they came to a stop. Her chest was heaving slightly, brushing against his in a way that set his nerves alight, and her cheeks were flushed and glowing under the muted lights drifting down from the sparkling crystal chandeliers high overhead. To his mind it was like something from a film, or from one of those old books she loved so dearly; a beautiful room, a beautiful song, a beautiful woman, an enchanted night; he felt a compulsion so strong it could not be ignored and in that moment he could not stop himself from leaning forward and brushing her lips with his own.

"Did I mention," he said softly as he pulled away, "just how beautiful you are tonight?"

* * *

The woman in the almost-purple dress had made another appearance, Harry realized as he glanced once more at the ballroom over Jim's shoulder. From his spot in this secluded corner he could see the dancefloor quite well, and he had a perfect view of her achingly familiar back, dancing gracefully with a rather nondescript looking brown-haired man. The song came to an end and the man leaned forward to kiss his companion; for a moment Harry felt a stab of jealousy, watching these two people who could so carelessly show their affection for one another, who could kiss one another without the fate of the world resting on their shoulders.

And then the woman turned away from her partner, no doubt intending to make her way towards the bar for a drink, and for the first time, Harry caught sight of her face.

* * *

Rachel said something about needing another glass of wine, and Charlie heartily agreed. He couldn't believe he'd done that just now; she was always lecturing him about his somewhat over-exuberant nature, the way he tended to reveal more than was necessary, and he'd just done it again. He hoped a little wine would smooth things over. That kiss had certainly ruffled her feathers, and not in the way he'd hoped. She'd tensed in his arms, drawn a sharp breath and stepped away from him with an expression on her face he could not fathom. For a moment, just a single frozen instant, she seemed to him to become another woman entirely, a woman with hard eyes and nerves of steel. It passed before he could truly process it, but it had frightened him in away, reminded him that there was so much about her he didn't know, and that thought made him uneasy.

Charlie retrieved their glasses from the table and Rachel accepted hers without a word. As they turned toward the bar he did not reach out to guide her again, much as he longed to touch her; he couldn't imagine that such a gesture would be well-received just now. So lost was he in his contemplations of Rachel and his missteps with her that he was not watching when it happened; he was juggling his wine glass and adjusting his cufflinks when suddenly his reverie was broken by the sound of glass shattering upon the marble floor.

He looked up to see Rachel, frozen still as a statue, one hand covering her mouth and her empty wine glass in ruins at her feet.


	7. Chapter 7

**We're nearly there, y'all! One more chapter after this.**

* * *

 _Three words that became hard to say  
_ _I and love and you_

 _-I and Love and You/The Avett Brothers_

* * *

 _Manhattan, New York  
_ _U.N. Headquarters  
_ _The same night_

The breath had been stolen from her lungs, the world around her had lurched to a halt, her heart thundered so loudly in her chest that she could hear nothing over the roar of blood in her ears; she couldn't move, she couldn't think, frozen in a single moment as Rachel Wallace ceased to be and Ruth Evershed finally awoke for the first time in nearly six months.

 _Harry._

To her, he was the only person in the room, the edges of her vision blurred by a sudden rush of tears as everything around him went fuzzy and he came sharply into focus. She drank him in; the lines of his face, the slight curl of his hair, his broad shoulders filling out his tuxedo jacket just so, the haunted look in his dear, sweet eyes. It all coalesced into a single image, a single moment, a single man. _Harry._

He _couldn't_ be here, not now; this couldn't be happening. Harry was gone, she had _left_ him, had closed the door on anything they could ever have been together. She gulped, desperate for air, desperate to wrap her mind around what she saw.

Across the room Harry's eyes were trained on her; people passed between them, momentarily obscuring her vision, but when they were gone Harry remained, standing by the bar, unmoving, unblinking, staring. At her.

For months she had longed to see him, to reach out and touch him, to fall to her knees at his feet and beg his forgiveness, and he was _here._ It did not seem possible, did not seem real; for a moment she was certain that she was dreaming, that she would wake to find herself alone in her bed back in her borrowed brownstone, certain that the vision of Harry looking even more handsome than she remembered in his crisp, tailored tux would vanish like a puff of smoke on the wind.

But he did not vanish. He stood there, half hidden around the corner of the bar, his back ramrod straight and his eyes boring into hers, and she could not fathom the expression on his face. Was he pleased to see her? Was he cross? _Oh God,_ she thought, giving a little shudder as the first tendrils of hysteria wrapped themselves around her heart, _he must hate me._

For how could he feel anything but hate for her, for the woman who had spurned him, scorned him, left him cold and alone and never gave him any reason why? What must he have felt that day, waking up to find her gone? What must he have thought when he'd learned the horrible truth, learned of the completeness of her desertion? What had he gone through, without her there by his side to guide him, support him, carry him through?

 _I love you,_ she thought, the words flitting through the chaos of her mind, an intention unfulfilled. _I love you, I love you, I ruined you, I'm sorry-_

"Rachel?"

She gave a start at the sound of Charlie's concerned voice and took an involuntary step backwards, her stilettos crunching the glass underfoot.

* * *

 _Ruth._

She was _here_ , Ruth was _here_ , and Harry's breath seemed to freeze in his chest, righteous anger and desperate love rebounding in the frantic clatter of his heart against his ribs. _So she made it to New York, after all_ , he thought in a daze, unwilling even to blink lest he lose sight of her completely. He forgot about the Home Secretary, forgot about Albany, forgot about the man standing beside her with that disconcerted expression on his face, forgot about Jim sitting beside him and asking _Hal? You ok?_ All he saw were her eyes, huge and sad and lovely as he remembered, locked on his own; her hands, trembling as she stared at him; her face, that face he loved so well, frozen in an expression of the same sort of frantic hope and longing that filled him as he hungrily devoured every inch of her with his gaze.

She looked beautiful, his Ruth, beautiful and distant, sad and graceful, as untouchable as the horizon. The dress that had caught his eye earlier in the evening clung to her, emphasized the gentle curves of her body, the smooth paleness of her skin, the shine of her chestnut hair. As he stood, immobilized by her beauty and his own warring emotions, he could not help but remember the feel of her in his arms, could not help but wonder for the thousandth time what he could possibly say to the woman who had owned him so completely, who had broken him so irreversibly.

Part of him wanted to rage at her, to cross the distance between them and look her in the eye as he snarled _who the bloody hell do you think you are and what the bloody hell were you thinking?_ Another part longed to march across the gulf between them, catch her face in his hands, and kiss her until the world made sense again, wanted to crush her against his chest and whisper to her over and over again _I love you, I love you, don't leave me here alone, I love you._

Vaguely he wondered about the man beside her, the man who had danced with her, the man who had kissed her. Had she taken a lover, then? It would be nothing new; Ruth was a human being, underneath it all, a woman who needed affection and something solid to ground her, who dreamed of a simple life. _Everything about my life was simple, and elegant, for once._

Was her life simple and elegant, again? What would she say if he once more shattered the illusion of her happy partnership, if once again his love took away any hope she had of happiness?

A stream of people passed between them and he lost sight of her for a moment, just an instant, and when she came back into view he saw the man beside her reach for her elbow, his gaze flitting concernedly between Ruth and Harry. He saw the man say something to her, saw her take a step back, a step away from him, and his heart sank in his chest.

* * *

There was a look of such desperate terror on her face that it very nearly stopped his heart; what on earth could have frightened her so?

Charlie followed her gaze across the room, and felt his confusion growing. There was nothing over there, except for the bar. A few guests had stopped and turned at the sound of the glass breaking, but they were all focused once more on their own preoccupations. All save one.

He was not a particularly remarkable looking man, and had he not been focused with laser-like intensity on Rachel, Charlie was certain he would overlooked the fellow entirely. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties, balding and somewhat paunchy, though he had something of the predator about him. _Dangerous,_ that's the word, the man looked dangerous, and his eyes were trained on Rachel. There were people moving all around them, passing between his frozen companion and that peculiar, terrible man, but neither Rachel nor the stranger looked away for a second. So intense was their connection that Charlie felt certain a bomb could go off right between them, and neither of them would flinch.

 _God, you have no idea who this woman is,_ Charlie thought. Curiosity warred with concern inside him; Rachel seemed scared to death, and she was ignoring the waiter who had come by to clean up the mess, refusing to move or even acknowledge the poor man's existence as she remained stock-still and staring.

"Rachel?" he asked, taking a tentative step toward her, reaching out to touch her lightly, hoping to draw her back into the moment.

* * *

She stepped away from him, and the hope seemed to die in his chest. The moment was broken, the invisible chord that had just begun to tighten, just begun to draw him to her, snapped in an instant as the man beside her claimed her attention, and she once again pulled away. It seemed to Harry that he had forever been caught in this dance with Ruth, one foot in and one foot back, never fully committed, never moving in the same direction. For months he had dreamt of her, for months he had imagined her, had longed for her; perhaps this what he needed, this final sign that she would never be his, never truly, never in the way he wanted. She would be a part of him, would be the heart beating in his chest until the end of his days, but he would never be with her, would never mean as much to her as she did to him.

With a weary sigh he lifted one hand, and rubbed it over his face, exhaustion and simple human sorrow overwhelming him. He was certain that when he opened his eyes again she would be gone, disappearing through the doors with her new lover in tow, cementing the utter ruin of his heart.

* * *

"Get your bloody hands off me," Ruth growled; she supposed she should have felt guilty, for speaking to Charlie that way, but Harry was here, Harry was _here,_ and she needed to see him, needed to talk to him, needed to know if there was a chance, however small, that he might not hate her, after all. Beside her Charlie stiffened, but he dropped his hand from her elbow, and she spun away from him, her eyes searching frantically for Harry, trying to reestablish the tentative connection they had stumbled upon moments before. Ruth felt herself on the very edge of flying apart, her hands trembling with fear and hope and everything in between as she fought the urge to simply kick off her shoes and run across the room, screaming his name.

 _Harry._

She breathed a sigh of relieve when her eyes found his again; he was just lowering his hand, had been rubbing his temples in an achingly familiar gesture, a gesture that spoke volumes to her about his current emotional state. He didn't hate her, she realized as looked into his eyes from across the room; if he hated her he would have turned away by now, or worse, would have forced his way towards her and begun to shout. Instead he stood patient and still, waiting for her to come to him, circumspect and hesitant, the way he so often was when it came to matters of the heart. In that moment she realized that everything rested on her shoulders, that if she wanted to speak to him, she would have to be the one to make the grand gesture this time. He had held her, had loved her, had given up everything for her; the least she could do was cross a room to speak to him.

 _Just one step,_ she told herself, fighting to contain the shaking of her limbs; _just take one step._

* * *

She wasn't leaving.

She was walking towards him.

 _Christ._

It all seemed so surreal, when he opened his eyes once more and found her still locked in this moment with him, saw her say something to her companion that must have been unpleasant indeed, given the way the man jerked his hand back from her arm _; not a lover, then_ , Harry thought, wishing, needing it to be true. Whatever she had to say to him, no matter how terrible, no matter how cruel, he needed to hear it, needed to know for a certainty how she felt, what she was thinking, _why._ Whatever her intentions, this was the only chance he would ever have to tell her how he felt, what she'd done to him, how he had missed her, how badly he need her, and he had to take it.

He took a deep breath, and waited.

* * *

Jim Coaver watched with interest as the woman made her way across the room, her luminous eyes fixed on Harry's face. The last thirty seconds had been enlightening, to say the least; Harry had taken one look at her and vaulted to his feet, rather obviously caught between a desire to run to her and a desire to flee, and the woman for her part had been so shocked to see him that she'd dropped her glass and caused quite a scene. That they knew one another was patently, painfully obvious, but just how well acquainted they were remained to be seen. Something in the way they gazed at one another, something in the woman's face as she made her way toward Harry, every step halting and uncertain, seemed to suggest an… _intimate_ past, and something twigged in the back of Jim's mind.

Long ago, when they had both been young and brave and more brawns than brains, Harry had been something of a ladies' man, a different girl hanging off him every time Jim turned around, and Jim had always quietly resented him for it. When they went their separate ways they remained in touch, and they always made time in their brief conversations to discuss the women in their lives. Jim found Jana, a gorgeous blonde who'd changed his life, settled him down, made him feel like home was a place he wanted to go at the end of the day; Harry, though, Harry had never found a match. Oh, he'd kiss and tell (and tell, and tell), but it was always a different woman, a different name, a different excuse for why things didn't work out. That all changed a few years ago, when suddenly the well of names ran dry, and Harry, rather uncharacteristically, no longer had anything to say on the subject. Until the ugliness with his suspension, Jim had assumed that his friend was just getting older, finally slowing down; but then there was that inquiry a few months back, and a whisper had reached Jim in Langley. Just a whisper, the faintest hint of a suggestion that it was a woman who had finally done in the great Harry Pearce.

He watched this woman walking towards his old friend, and he wondered. She was pretty, in a very subtle, mellow sort of way, with eyes like he'd never seen before, and Jim found himself asking if hers was the sort of face a man like Harry Pearce could throw it all away for.

With a small, commiserating chuckle, Jim turned back to his whiskey, choosing to go against his every instinct as a lifelong spy and give his old friend some privacy. He fully intended to leave them to it, but then he checked his watch, and then he swore.

* * *

Just like that, they were standing face to face. Ruth's breaths were sharp and shallow in her chest, and she struggled to keep herself calm, to keep her hands steady. She'd fully expected to never see him again, had finally come to terms with the fact that some wrongs can never be undone, and now here he was, right in front of her, his face stony and unreadable.

She had known this man, once. Had been able to speak to him with just a glance, had been able to reach out her hand and find him there, always, gentle and strong and sure, the rock on which she beached herself in the sea of madness that was their life at MI-5. She had known him, and he had known her, had known when to give her the reigns and let her lead, had known when she needed him to guide her, had known when to give her space and when to push. This man had stood beside her through so much horror, so much grief, and even, once or twice, through a moment of joy. Why then did she feel as if she were looking at a stranger? Why could she not find the words, why could she not just open her bloody mouth and say what she longed to say? _I love you. I'm sorry. I love you._

"Harry," she managed finally.

* * *

"Harry," she said, in a voice that sounded dangerously close to tears, and just like that he felt his resolve crumble. He had sworn he would be stern, that he would not give in to his desire to hold her, that he would demand an accounting from her, that he would protect his heart. Those vows vanished in an instant as he saw her lower lip tremble, as he watched the fear and the hope and the yearning swirling through her eyes, the same fear, the same hope, the same yearning that pounded inside him. This was _Ruth,_ and no matter what they'd been through, no matter what she'd done, no one had ever known him like her, no one had ever touched him like her, no one had ever come close to her. This was _Ruth,_ standing in front of him, her face as open to him as ever, and in that face he saw none of the callousness, none of the frigidity, none of the anger he had expected.

 _She still doesn't know,_ he thought numbly. _She still feels guilty, she still thinks that people are going to die because of her._ For the first time since she'd left, he found, with stunning clarity, that he understood.

"Ruth," he answered, lifting his hand to touch her but pulling back at the last moment, remembering the man who'd been with her. He didn't entertain any fantasies of taking her back to England with him, didn't believe for a moment that she would be willing to walk away from her life for him ( _again,_ a needling voice whispered in the back of his mind), but she had come this far, had taken this risk to speak to him, and he was damned if he was going to let this opportunity pass him by. The words there, just there, on the tip of his tongue, _Albany doesn't work, it never worked, please, I love you…_

"Harry!" Jim's voice rang out from behind him, and in that moment, Harry could have killed him.

Ruth flinched, shrinking back, drawing in on herself as Jim approached, and Harry had to clasp his hands together behind his back to keep from wrapping his arms around her. Whatever might be happening between them now he was still on operation, in a room full of unfriendlies, with a Deputy Director of the CIA standing by his shoulder; he couldn't afford to give anything away, couldn't afford to advertise his greatest weakness, his greatest strength.

"Sorry to interrupt," Jim said, giving Ruth a quick, charmless grin, "but it's time for us to go."

* * *

 _No, God, please no._

It was just so _unfair,_ just so cruel and wrong and terrible, that he should be here, that he should look at her and say her name with such understanding, such need, only to be taken from her before they had a chance to clear the air between them. Panic gripped her, stuck her tongue to the roof of her mouth, turned her thoughts sluggish and slow.

 _I have to stop him, I have to. Oh, don't go, please…_

The American clapped his hand on Harry's shoulder and jerked his head toward the door, clearly anxious to get going, and Harry took the hint.

"I'm terribly sorry, er…" Harry said to her, his voice trailing off and his eyebrow lifting, and then she understood.

He wanted to know her name. He wanted to find her, after. He wasn't letting her go forever, just letting her go for now; it would have to be enough.

"Rachel," she said finally, shocked by how steady her voice was. "Rachel Wallace. I work as a translator here."

He nodded, gave her a small smile. "Rachel. It was lovely to meet you."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: This is a beast of a chapter and I hope it was worth the wait. Thank you for taking this journey with me, and for all your kind words of support.**

* * *

 _Oh, Brooklyn, Brooklyn take me in  
_ _Are you aware the shape I'm in  
_ _My hands they shake, my head it spins  
_ _Oh, Brooklyn, Brooklyn take me in_

 _-I and Love and You/The Avett Brothers_

* * *

 _Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York  
_ _3:00 a.m. that same night_

The subway took him almost all the way to her home, a fact for which he was profoundly grateful. He'd heard New York called _The City That Never Sleeps;_ given that a) he was able catch a train at this obscene hour, and b) he wasn't the only person in the car, it seemed to him that the moniker was well earned. His fellow passengers had appeared as exhausted and out of sorts as he felt, and if any of them thought it odd that they were sharing their train with a man in a tuxedo, they didn't draw attention to their surprise. He rode along in silence, changing lines a few times, wondering how long it must have taken Ruth – Rachel – to commute to work every day.

It hadn't been very difficult, in the end, to track down Rachel Wallace. He went to his meeting, and he used Jim as a barometer, alternately nodding in agreement or grunting in dissatisfaction according to the expression on his old friend's face. He didn't register a word that was spoken, his mind too full of thoughts of Ruth. Thoughts of Ruth in that dress, thoughts of Ruth kissing another man; memories of the look on Ruth's face as the paramedics brought her round after Albany, memories of the way Ruth moaned beneath him when she came. She filled him up, consumed him, the way she always had, and he drowned beneath the deluge of her. And when the meeting was done, when it was generally agreed that enough had been said for one night, he pulled Jim Coaver aside, and asked him for a favor.

" _Is she the woman you were talking to, before we came in here?" Jim asked._

 _Harry nodded. "She used to be one of my analysts. I think she has something to tell me, but I don't know where to find her. All I have is her legend." It was a gamble, telling a Deputy Director of the CIA that a former MI-5 analyst had bullshitted her way into a cushy job with the United Nations, but Harry desperately needed to find her. Desperately needed_ her _._

 _Jim ran a tired hand over his face. The conference lasted until well past midnight, and it was obvious that after all the bloviating and politicking and general animosity of their little assembly all Jim wanted was to go home to his wife. His thirty-nine year old wife. Harry had almost laughed aloud, when Jim casually dropped that little tidbit into their conversation earlier in the evening. Harry had very nearly betrayed himself completely, had very nearly explained that his Ruth was thirty-nine as well, and weren't they a pair. There wasn't enough whiskey in the world to get him drunk enough to explain Ruth to Jim Coaver, though, so Harry bit his tongue. Told a half-truth, and hoped his old friend wouldn't ask too many questions._

" _It shouldn't be too hard to get her address, if she was telling the truth about working for the U.N. Give me twenty minutes, I'll see what I can dig up." The concession came easier than Harry had been expecting, and though he worried about what that might mean, he wasn't willing to risk his only chance of finding her by playing the part of the suspicious old spook._

" _Thank you," he said simply._

 _Jim gave him a cheeky little grin. "You'll owe me one, though."_

And that was that. Jim went digging through the records from the guest list, poking at a little tablet computer until finally he got what he needed, and Harry scribbled down her address on a napkin. It had taken nearly twenty minutes of staring at subway maps before he was confident he knew where he was going, but as soon as he had his route mapped out he took off, buoyed by the familiar rush of adrenaline that always accompanied the start of a mission. Jim had offered him a driver for the evening but he graciously declined; the fewer people who knew where he was going, the better. He had no way of knowing who Jim might or might not tell, but they had both been in this business long enough to realize that the chances of Harry actually repaying the favor he owed decreased with each name added to the list. Likely Jim would keep his peace, holding this information in reserve until the moment it became useful. And thus the game of spies played on.

Harry rode the train as long as he could, and finally disembarked and began the final leg of his journey on foot, walking down a deserted, tree-shaded lane that ran through the middle of a quiet neighborhood. The houses loomed tall on either side of him, and the cars jockeyed for space on the narrow road; he saw flowers blooming behind small, wrought-iron fences and in old wooden window-boxes, saw children's toys scattered along the steps of a brownstone, and a raccoon rooting through an over-filled bin.

The night was mercifully cool, after the sweltering heat of a New York summer day, and as he walked Harry tugged absently at his bow tie and thought about Ruth, walking along the same pavement he was now traversing, waving to her neighbors and smiling the little sideways smile he loved so dearly, bestowing her charm on children and small dogs alike. He thought about Ruth, who had always longed to see New York for herself, and who had somehow managed to make it here, despite everything that had happened. He thought about the look on her face, when she saw him for the first time earlier in the evening, and he wondered what she'd been thinking. That she wanted to see him was clear, but once again, he found himself asking _why._

A million possibilities floated through his mind as he walked, each more dreadful than the last, but as he considered his predicament he realized that the only thing that mattered to him was that he had found her, that she was safe and well and whole, and that in just a few minutes he would get to hear her voice again. Let her shout, let her cry, let her rail against him for hours; it didn't matter, so long as he could listen to her voice, and see for himself that Albany had not completely destroyed the woman he loved more than anything in this world.

And _oh_ , but he loved her.

His love for her had been the one constant in his life these last few years. Around him the world burned and friends died and solid truths became hard betrayals, but through it all he loved her, and that love kept him sane. _She_ kept him sane. Ruth had seemed so innocuous when she first arrived, a frumpy analyst in a long skirt and too much make-up, with her big, costumey jewelry and her unparalleled intellect. Thirty-two, and still just a girl in many ways, still a little naïve, still so very hopeful. Oh, she had seen her share of heartbreak, before she arrived on the Grid, and Harry knew that better than most, but there had been a sweetness about her. Death had come for them, had stolen that sweetness away, and yet, through it all, he loved her.

It was difficult to pinpoint the exact moment he first fell in love with her, though he had pondered that question many times. He'd been more amused than attracted by her in the beginning; she had been such an odd little thing. Somewhere along the way, though, she had shown him the steel hiding beneath her blushes and her huge, shining eyes. There was a strength there, a resilience the likes of which he had never really encountered in an analyst before. Most field agents possessed that toughness of spirit in spades, but most of them lacked her warmth, her compassion. Danny had told him once, after the Andrew Forrestal debacle, that as he carried her from that treacherous bastard's house she had spoken of her captor not with anger but with pity. She felt sorry for a man who had kidnapped her, who almost certainly would have killed her; Harry didn't know anyone else who would have reacted the same, had they been in her shoes, and that conversation with Danny had stuck with him over the years.

No, he didn't know precisely when he'd come to love her, but by the time he sat at Juliet's beside and listened to his former paramour's words of wisdom his feelings for Ruth were already a foregone conclusion. He'd been hesitant, though, and she'd been shy, and they had wasted so much bloody time. Then she was gone, and his world tilted slightly on its axis as he struggled to find his way, lost at sea in a night devoid of stars. Without her by his side he made mistakes, found himself bruised and battered and broken, and though eventually he had found his feet again, he no longer smiled the way he used to, no longer dreamed of a grand tour and a woman with a voice like honey. He worked, and in that work he sought his salvation.

The Ruth who eventually returned was not the same woman who had left him three years before. She was harder, now, more serious, more contrary than she had ever been. In spite of the changes they had both undergone during their time apart, he found he loved her still, loved her more, even. The Ruth who returned to him was a woman who had endured almost as much horror as he had, who could stand beside him as an equal in their world of ghosts and shadows. With each day that passed he found he leaned on her more and more, and she bore up well beneath the strain of him.

What would she say of him, he wondered, of the man he had been and the man he had become? She thought he'd betrayed himself, betrayed her, betrayed _their_ principles, for the sake of something as foolish and impermanent as love, and she hated him for placing the deaths of millions on her conscience. No matter what else happened tonight, Harry was determined to set the record straight in that regard; she needed to know that Albany didn't work, had never worked, and that no one – well, no one _else_ – would die because he loved her.

Before he realized it, he had reached her house, and he stood for a moment outside the gate, his hands trembling and useless by his sides. His mind spun with thoughts of her, of them, turning round and round and leaving him breathless and dazed.

 _Ruth is in this house_ , he thought, staring up at it in wonder. There was a light on inside, shining through the curtains on the window, beckoning him on. He took a deep breath, and opened the gate. He walked up the four little stairs, reached out with unsteady hands, and knocked three times. And then he waited.

He'd been waiting for Ruth for years now, it seemed. Waiting for a sign that she cared for him the way he cared for her, waiting for the right moment to ask her to dinner, waiting for her to be brave, waiting for her to come home, waiting for her to stop hating him, waiting for her to stop hating herself. Waiting was something he'd become accustomed to, and it didn't worry him, that she should make him wait now. It would be worth it, in the end. _She_ would be worth it. She always was.

Finally, the door opened, and there on the other side stood Ruth, still wearing that dress, still looking at him like she couldn't quite bring herself to believe he was real. She did not smile at him softly, did not shyly duck her head the way she used to do when confronted with him so directly; she faced him head on, blinding him with the full force of her luminous gaze. Over the last eight years Harry Pearce had learned so much about this woman, and one of the many skills he'd honed, when it came to dealing with Ruth, was the ability to read her face with a single glance. What he saw there this night, written in the familiar lines and folds of her soft skin, was fear. She was afraid of him, of what he'd come to say, what he'd come to do, but for once he did not retreat from her. He did not give her space, did not step back in the hopes that she might come to him. She'd come to him already, crossing a crowded ballroom to face him, telling him her new name. That had been sacrifice enough, he thought. In this moment, he owed it to her not to back down, and so instead he took a step closer.

"Can I come in?" he asked softly.

Ruth nodded and moved aside, allowing him room to enter her home for the first time.

Beyond the door her brownstone was sparsely decorated, with none of the clutter he'd come to associate with her. After Cotterdam, he had sat for a time in her empty house, the little house with the stained glass window set in the front door, where he'd come to her the night Gary Hicks had shown up on her doorstep reeking of cigarette smoke and trouble. After Cotterdam, he sat on her sofa in that little house, her cats rubbing themselves against him in an incessant ploy for attention, and drank in the smell of her, the sense of her that permeated every inch of the room. There had been books everywhere, in that house, and odd little figurines and photographs and an old record player, like the one that sat on his own shelf at home. There were blankets and mismatched pillows and scarves and shoes everywhere he looked, and for hours he simply sat in the quiet, trying to imagine a world without this woman. When he could sit no longer he passed from room to room, gathering up the cats' things and a few odds and ends he knew she'd want, should she ever find her way back to him. The copy of Ovid he gave her for her birthday, the entire works of Jane Austen, a well-thumbed anthology of ancient poetry, photographs of her father, her favorite scarf, a small, rather sad looking stuffed rabbit. Since technically Ruth had died, everything in that house had passed to her estate (to her mother), and after MI-5 went through her belongings to make sure no state secrets lurked behind her battered teacups and tomes of Arabic poetry, Elizabeth had held an estate sale, auctioning off every piece of Ruth until all that remained were the few things Harry had managed to salvage, packed with reverent care in a box, tucked neatly away in his attic. Absently he wondered if Ruth had ever actually gone down to see her mother and explain that she wasn't dead, after all. The pair of them had never been particularly close, he knew; civil, but not affectionate.

"Tea?" she asked him, twisting her hands together in a heart-rendingly familiar gesture, drawing him back to the present.

Honestly, he would have preferred Scotch, and lots of it, but it was already so late as to be early, and the absurdity of the hour combined with his jet lag made for a dangerous combination. Throwing alcohol into the mix would only solidify the potential for disaster that hung in the air, and so he abstained, and agreed to a cup of tea instead.

The kitchen was more like her, he decided. Whereas the foyer and what he'd seen of the sitting room were bare and utilitarian, the kitchen was warm and colorful, the back wall given over to a pair of huge windows that he imagined would let in a great deal of light in the mornings. This was the sort of room that reminded him of her, with a riot of magnets on the fridge and a few odd decorative bowls on the counter tops. A little cat was curled up on a rug in the far corner, and Harry smiled to see it.

He'd taken in Ruth's two cats (Fidget and Lawrence, the two most improbably named animals he'd ever encountered), after Cotterdam. Lawrence died while she was gone, and Harry had spent a terrible afternoon digging a little grave in his own back garden. He'd marked it with a stone, and he'd always meant to show it to Ruth, to show her the care he'd taken with this piece of her, but after everything that had happened between them he couldn't bring himself to raise the specter of death unbidden. Fidget died a few weeks before Ros; he'd always wondered if that had been the beginning of the end, if losing the little creature had been the first crack in the ruins of her life. She lost Fidget, and then Ros, then there was his awful proposal, then there was that letter from Greece, then the French assassin, and then Albany; it was all too much for one person to bear.

"What's his name?" Harry asked, and Ruth turned to him sharply. Belatedly he realized how the question sounded, how it might appear that he was asking after the man she'd danced with at the gala, and not her cat. He gave her a weak little smile and gestured vaguely towards the cat, and watched the relief roll over her in waves.

"You're going to laugh," she said, turning back to her little kettle.

"It can't possibly be worse than Fidget," he reminded her, and immediately kicked himself for bringing up that particular memory. If his words wounded her, she did not show it; instead she continued to speak as she fussed over the tea things.

"I adopted him from a shelter. I sat down on the floor and he just curled up in my lap, and I knew he was the one I wanted. When I went to fill out the paperwork to take him home, they told me the name they'd given him. I couldn't believe it, and I just couldn't bring myself to change it."

She fell silent, pouring the tea and refusing to look at him. Harry didn't mind so much; the view of her back in that dress left him breathless and paralyzed with longing.

"They'd named him Harry."

He didn't really know what to say to that. She'd found a cat named Harry, and she'd brought him home, and she hadn't changed his name. In that moment, he couldn't help but hope that this meant something good for him, for them, that she had accepted little Harry as he was. Perhaps she could do the same for his namesake, as well.

Ruth turned to face him then, and he saw how tired she looked. In the last year they'd spent together, the year after they lost Ros, she'd looked tired all the time, worn down by the strain between them and the constant barrage of loss. He wondered if perhaps he should have waited until morning to come to her, but the truth was he simply couldn't keep himself away. They'd been separated for far too long, and the thought of spending another moment alone when she was so close by was unbearable. And she was still awake at 3:00 a.m., still wearing that dress, with a light on in her front hall just for him, as if she'd known he come to her at the first opportunity, and damn the timing. As if she'd wanted him to.

Without a word she handed him his mug, and he thanked her softly before they sat together at her little table. The table was wooden, and rustic looking, with a pale blue runner draped across it and a vase of flowers sitting cheerfully in the center.

"They're fake," she told him, following his gaze to the flowers. "Harry likes to eat real flowers, so I bought plastic ones to discourage him."

Hearing his name used in reference to her cat brought a little smile to his lips.

"He sounds like trouble," Harry observed wryly, painfully aware that he could just as easily be talking about himself. That point didn't go unnoticed by Ruth; her eyes found his, searching him, holding him, reading him as he read her. The seconds ticked by unheeded.

"He's worth it, though," she said softly.

It seemed to Harry that as he looked at her he could feel her thinking, could hear her voice in his head, could sense the beat of her heart across the table. There was no hate in her eyes, no recrimination; only warmth, and fear.

"Albany doesn't work." He spoke the words before he lost his nerve, knowing that he had to, that she needed to hear them.

She jerked back from him, launching herself to her feet, and he was suddenly, starkly reminded of the day he'd told her Jo had died. She was putting distance between them, as she had then, was looking at him the same way, that mixture of horror and sheer disbelief in her eyes, shaking her head and saying softly, _no._ That wasn't exactly the reaction he'd been expecting; though, come to think of it, he wasn't sure what he _had_ expected. Relief? Gratitude? That she'd fling herself into his arms and make love to him on the table out of sheer joy?

"You…you….you _unbelievable_ bastard," she said, shaking from head to toe with barely controlled rage.

Harry wasn't entirely sure what he'd done to deserve the word _bastard_ being flung at him with such rancor; shouldn't she be glad, to learn that the world was still safe from that particular brand of evil? Shouldn't she be glad that in the end it was only his career he'd sacrificed for her, and not his humanity?

With his own anger rising in his chest Harry stood, and took a step towards her; she stepped back, shaking her head, her lips moving in soundless fury. He moved on, undaunted, but then she found her voice again, and the sound of it stopped him in his tracks, a bare three feet separating them now.

"You _lied_ to me, Harry," she said, each of her words hitting him like a tiny bullet, piercing his flesh and leaving him raw and bleeding. "I thought you _trusted_ me, but you didn't listen when I told you about Lucas, and you lied to us about Albany. Lied to _me."_

He understood her emphasis on that last word all too well; he could justify lying to his team, to the Home Secretary, to his own bloody mother, but lying to Ruth was unfathomable. Trust was all they had; their reliance on one another was what kept them alive, kept them fighting in the darkness. He had trusted her absolutely, and she had valued that trust above everything else in her life. And he had betrayed her.

"I lied to keep you safe. I thought I could save you _and_ Albany, and when it all fell out you would be better off, professionally-"

"Oh, bugger _professionally,_ Harry, I thought I meant more to you than that."

A palpable, strained, horrible silence fell as her words ricocheted around the room, fracturing every part of him.

 _You mean everything to me,_ Harry thought. This was unbearable; her anger, his remorse, their exhaustion, the weight of it all threatened to drag him under entirely. But this was why he had come. He had come here tonight to have this fight with her, to say every word he had never said, to feel every hurt he had hidden from himself, to take a chance and maybe, just maybe, put them back together.

"You meant everything to me," he said aloud, and her shoulders sagged beneath the burden of his declaration. "You meant everything to me and you left me behind."

There would be no coming back from this, he knew, but he could not pretend like that night had never happened. Could not pretend that he had never tasted the sweetness of her skin, that he had never felt her shudder beneath his hands, that they had never moved together in the darkness like two halves of the same whole, welding themselves together, never to be torn asunder. She held his heart in her trembling hands; she always had done.

"I couldn't stay, knowing what you'd done," she answered, refusing to look at him now. He pressed his advantage, stepping closer to her still. He could reach out and touch her, now, could pull her into his arms if he wanted to, if she'd let him.

"You went to my house that night to say good-bye, didn't you?" His words were quiet, measured, steadier than he'd expected, given the welter of emotions roiling inside him. Years of living the life of a spook had taught him restraint, and though she often broke through his carefully cultivated aura of cool authority, he managed to hold himself in check, if only just barely.

She did not speak, but her silence was answer enough.

"You knew you were leaving, but still you…you still…" he could not find the words, could not think of any way to phrase it that was not too crass or too much for her to hear. _You still came to my bed, you still gave me everything I ever wanted, and then you took it all away, took yourself away from me…_

"I needed you, Harry." Her voice quavered when she spoke, and the hairline fractures in his resolve began to widen, his heart buckling under the pressure.

"I need you still," he answered.

Ruth looked up at him then, drawing in a sharp breath and covering her mouth with one hand as she fought to contain a single, hysterical sob. He moved towards her tentatively, closing up what little space remained between them, wondering if this was it, if this was the moment she would cast him out of her life forever. Dramatic confessions had never been his forte; he preferred subtlety and quiet, sincere actions. Standing so close to her, so close he could almost feel her chest rising against his own as she struggled for breath, he studied her for signs of imminent collapse. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears, her shoulders sagging with grief and doubt, but for all the ravages of heartbreak that showed on her face she was still the loveliest woman he'd ever seen, because she was _Ruth._ It was his knowledge of her that made her beautiful, transcendent, even.

"I'm so sorry, Harry," she breathed, her voice breaking as she spoke his name.

"I love you," he answered. For years he had struggled with those three words, had been unable to give them voice, to find the right time, the right place, the right tone to speak the truth of his heart to her, and now they fell from his lips so easily that he couldn't help but wonder how much misery could have been avoided, if only he'd found the courage to say them sooner. He knew himself, knew _her_ well enough to know that now was the time, now was his moment; they had bled and broken and run and chased and fallen apart, and now was the time to fall together. She was not running from him, now. He was not hiding from her, now. They simply were. Together.

She began to cry in earnest, then, and he reached for her, sliding his hands around her waist to cradle her close to him, leaning down to kiss the salty tracks of her tears as they ran across her cheeks. The lace of her dress was soft beneath his hands, as delicate and fragile as her heart. She responded to him instantly, wrapping her arms around him beneath his jacket, burying her face against his chest as she trembled and shook and splintered, weeping in his arms.

How long they stood like that, he wasn't sure; he was so grateful to be holding her, to feel the reassuring weight of her in his arms, that he could have happily stood there for the rest of time, lost in Ruth and his boundless love for her. He understood _why_ now; he finally had the answer to the question that had plagued him through nearly six months of sleepless nights. She ran from him because she thought they were ruined, and she held him now because she knew they weren't.

It was Ruth who pulled away first, though she kept her hands pressed flat against his back, scorching him through his shirt. She leaned back in his arms, tilting her head back and revealing her glorious face, her eyes red-rimmed and glowing in the harsh light of her kitchen. There was no need for her to echo his words; her love for him was etched into her very pores, radiating out of her like heat from the sun, setting him ablaze with need for her.

She raised herself up on her tiptoes and he bowed his head to meet her, and they crashed together, lips hungry and desperate as the tumbled into a heated kiss, casting aside their dignity and their wounded pride, echoing his words with the movement of their bodies. As they fell into forgiveness together, somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that this was the first time he had ever kissed her without the words _good-bye_ echoing in the darkness around them. Her body yielded beneath him, and together they stumbled back until they hit the wall, using it as an anchor to hold them steady while their need consumed them and they lost all sense of time and space. Ruth needed words, and he had given her all the words he had, clumsy and halting but achingly true, and in the end, those words had been enough.

Still, they kissed, her tongue heavy in his mouth and her hands desperate and unsteady as she worked to relieve him of his jacket, sliding it off his shoulders to puddle in the floor behind him. Harry kicked the jacket away and pressed closer to her still, tangling one of his hands in her hair, holding her in place while he devoured her, losing his breath as he drank her in. His other hand blazed a trail down her back, remembering the shape of her, the feel of her, warm and solid and real beneath the river of pale, almost-purple fabric that hid her from his sight.

When she broke the connection of their lips the pair of them were breathless and overwhelmed, their hearts beating frantically in time with one another. He read her intention in her gaze, but her words still thrilled him when she spoke.

"Come upstairs, Harry," she said.

 _Take me to bed, Harry._

She could order him into bed every day for the rest of his life, and he would never grow tired of following her commands. It would not do to leave this room without another kiss, however, without sealing their unspoken agreement with one more passionate embrace, and so he sought out the comfort of her mouth once again, nipping her plump bottom lip between his teeth and drawing one low, wanton sigh from her before reaching out to catch her hand in his own.

"Lead the way," he said, his voice low and jagged with longing.

She did just that, threading her fingers through his own and offering him the stunning view of her back once again as she led him out of the kitchen and up the stairs. He could see nothing but her; not the color of the walls or the paintings she'd hung there, and when he reached her bedroom, the only details that permeated the fog swirling in his brain were the expression on her face, the scent of her perfume, the color of her eyes. This woman was his whole world, and had been for so long that he almost could not remember the person he had been without her.

Wordlessly she closed the door behind them, and turned her back on him, lifting her hair up and away from the nape of her neck in a silent invitation. He leaned in and kissed her softly there as his fingers found the row of little pearl buttons running down the center of her back, carefully slipping each one free until the material parted and he could run his hands across her skin unimpeded. As his hands mapped her body she shivered, little goosebumps rising in the wake of his touch. Keeping his hands under her dress he explored every inch of her he could reach, sliding his fingertips across her sides and around to cup the weight of her breasts in his hands. He rolled her nipples between his fingers and she moaned, falling back against him, her head resting on his collarbone. There was more here than lust, more here than love even; their every move, their every sound, was an act of contrition, a penance they paid to one another to earn the forgiveness of every horrible thing they'd ever done. There was no going back from this, and he would never want to. Even as he thought this, she spoke in a voice soft and heady with lust.

"I'm done running, Harry," she said, and when she spoke his name he leaned down, and pressed a kiss against the column of her throat. She threaded her fingers through his short, sparse hair, held him close against her as he continued to knead her breasts with his hands, drawing short, sharp sounds of pleasure from her. No other words could have thrilled him more; he wanted her, she wanted him, and she was done running.

Eventually, though, he needed more, needed to see all of her, needed to feel the unbearable perfection of her naked skin sliding against his own, and so he turned her in his arms, gently easing her dress off her shoulders. The heavy fabric slithered down her body in a cascade, highlighting the curve of her hips and the shape of her legs, flowing down and down until it pooled around her feet and she was left bare, wearing nothing but a very brief pair of black, lacy knickers and a small, bashful smile.

 _You're gorgeous,_ he thought.

He reached out, and cradled her face in his hands, drawing her flush against him as he gave into the need to kiss her again. While she kept him busy with her lips and her tongue her hands slid between them, fiddling around with his cummerbund until she had to break away from him, laughing. It had been so very long since he had last heard her laugh that he could not even bring himself to help her, and simply stood shocked into silence by the fact that he held an almost completely naked, giggling Ruth in his arms. Eventually, though, she worked it out, and breezily threw the offending garment away before setting to work on his shirt buttons, her mouth taking up residence in the hollow of his throat, kissing and nipping at his skin in a way that he found most distracting.

Piece by piece she undressed him, with a reverence and a joy that warmed his heart, and as each article of clothing hit the floor he seemed to feel the weight of all their years of misery rising off his shoulders, leaving him magnificently happy and utterly unburdened. By the time he was down to just his socks he was rock hard and ready for her, and they tumbled into her bed together, laughing and kissing and groping at one another like teenagers. With reckless abandon he dragged his lips across every part of her he could reach, reaching out to lave her nipple with his tongue until her laughter turned to moans. The last time they had been together like this grief and fear had colored their every touch, and he had been denied the pleasure of watching her face as she came. He decided that he would not make the same mistake again; when he took her tonight he would be looking into her eyes, and he could not contain the low sound of need that escaped him at the thought.

Ruth reached out and caught him by the wrist, dragging his hand down her body, urging him to reach beneath the waistband of her knickers, directing him with her own hand until his fingers found her wetness. Involuntarily he thrust against her thigh at the sensation, almost growling as he felt the heat of her, as he responded to the confidence she displayed in revealing her own arousal to him this way. Her folds were slick and soft and delicate beneath his fingertips; she threw her head back against the pillows and canted her hips up towards him, spreading her legs that much more and giving him room to maneuver between her thighs. For months he had dreamt of the sounds she made, writhing and moaning at his touch, and he could not wait to hear those sounds again. He slid her knickers down her legs and threw them over his shoulders, and then he bent to his task with a will, worshiping her breasts with his mouth while he slid his fingers inside her, every thrust of his hand against her heat drawing another breathy, needy whimper from her kiss-swollen lips.

Harder and faster he thrust against her, massaging her clit with his thumb until she clenched down hard against his hand, letting lose a cry, her whole body shaking with the force of her orgasm. In the moment of her ecstasy her head snapped back and her eyes screwed shut, pleasure etched into every line of her face. He leaned forward and pressed a gentle, teasing kiss against her chin, but still he continued thrusting his fingers inside her, relentless; he knew from experience that he could make her break again, and again, and that nothing in the world could move him as deeply as the sounds she made when she came.

" _Fuck,"_ she gasped, moving her hips in concert with his hand, her eyes flying open and focusing on his. He held her gaze, lost himself in her ocean-blue stare, drowning in love for this woman. One of her hands lifted, almost of its own accord, cupping his cheek while still he forced her on; for a moment they hung together, both of them breathless and eager for her next climax, unable to blink, unable to think, reduced to nothing but sensation. And then it struck, and she flung her arms around him, her fingernails digging into his shoulders as she dragged him down, clutched him against the softness of her body and very nearly sobbed with the power of her release. Harry nearly came himself, so overwhelmed was he by her reaction to him; he felt privileged indeed to stand witness to her splendor. For long moments he simply let her hold him, shielded her with his body and eased her down, leaving his fingers nestled inside her warmth, something for her inner muscles to clutch and flutter around as the last spasms of her climax shook her to her core. This thing between them was raw, and blistering in its intensity, but sweet, too, in its own way, and he was determined not to rush it.

Finally, her breathing slowed, though he could still feel the tempo of her heartbeat in the pulse of her inner walls around his fingers. He feathered kisses across her forehead, her cheeks, her chin, and finally her lips, reveling in the freedom of finally, finally being in this place with her, of finally having her back when for so long he had been certain that she was lost to him forever.

"I love you," she said quietly, lifting her heavy eyelids to gaze up at him, her face so open and clear and shining with her devotion to him that she quite took his breath away. "Always have done, really. I just thought I should say it. Out loud."

He smiled down at her softly. "I love you, too," he answered. It seemed to get easier, each time he said it; maybe that was the trick. He'd said it once, and the dam and broken, and now he felt he could say it again and again, over and over, until the end of his days. With a gentle hand she reached between them, wrapping her fingers around his hardness, throbbing with want for her, and guided him towards her slick entrance. He caught her hips in his hands, feeling the sharp protrusion of her bones beneath her skin, holding her steady while they moved together, neither of them looking away from the other for a moment. Slowly, ever so slowly, he breached her; Ruth's eyelids fluttered, but she kept them open, watching him as he watched her.

This was paradise, he decided, this was heaven on earth, this was a dream of such unparalleled glory that the memory burned itself into his brain, erasing every heartache and every cutting word that had ever passed between them until all that remained was his love for her, and hers for him. He sunk himself inside her, and she drew him in deeper still. Together they thrust and ground together, the sounds of their union filling the darkness of her bedroom, chasing away the shadows of their loneliness. Though he had originally intended this to be slow and languorous, he could not ignore the siren song of her body, and he picked up the pace, plunging into her harder and faster as she urged him on, bending her knees and lifting her hips, giving that much more of herself to him. His hands found their way to her bum, holding her up, squeezing her flesh in time to his thrusts until her moans took on a pleading, desperate tone, her voice rising higher and higher until finally she shattered, her whole body clenching around him, and he found his release in the midst of hers, resting his head against her shoulder as he came with a groan and a shudder of pleasure.

Not wanting to crush her, but unwilling to break their connection, he turned them gently so that they both lay on their sides, their arms and legs entangled, her soft breasts and hard nipples brushing against the coarse hair of his chest as they both struggled for breath. He brushed his lips against her temple, simple affection winning out over lust for the moment. Slowly, like a diver emerging from deep water, he came back to himself, took stock of his surroundings, and realized she was crying.

With a heavy heart and a shaking hand he reached out, and caught her chin with his fingertips, tilting her head back so he could look at her face. She read his question in his eyes, and answered in a wobbly voice, "I've never been this happy in my entire life."

Once again, she had surprised him.

"I love you," he answered, humbled by her honesty. "I love you now, and I loved you then, and I will go on loving you, no matter what else comes between us, for the rest of my life." This set off a fresh wave of tears, but she was still smiling at him, and that was all that mattered. He held her close, and let her cry, let her be her, his Ruth.

Sleep stole over her quickly, as her emotions and her exertions left her utterly spent, but it took Harry much longer to follow suit. His thoughts kept him awake, though his limbs were heavy with exhaustion. The curse of Albany had finally been lifted, and she was here with him, and he knew she would be there when he woke. In the morning they would talk, about the life she'd built here and the man she'd danced with and everything the team had been through in her absence. In the morning they would talk about the future, and decide whether they would stay here in Brooklyn together, or if she would pack up her meager belongings and little Harry and come back home with him. Whatever she wanted would be fine by him; he'd been ready to retire since the day Ros died, but he loved working on the Grid with Ruth, and either way he would be happy, so long as she was by his side. Yes, he would be happy, with his Ruth.

Finally he closed his eyes, and gave in to sleep.


End file.
